Eclectic travelers

When we took our Twin Grandsons - Aren and Ryan to the Black Hills this year.  It was their first visit - it was my 51st.   The Black Hills is a favorite place of mine, but considering how big the crowds can be and my love for solitude, you might ask why. I see in this landscape the same sacredness that the Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes found.  There is a sense of spiritual renewal when I am away from the crowds. Kate took the boys to Rushmore - I did not go.  It is not why I am here.  I do not find justification of carving up any mountain to honor any people - presidents or Lakota warriors, like Crazy Horse.  What I love is the open landscape of Wind Cave National Monument and Custer State park.  It is the feeling of the plains Indian, the unconquered beauty of wildlife, rocks, forest, and back country. The feeling of the rocks beneath our feet, the songs of birds, the color of flowers are the attributes of ...

Three years ago I reached the 50th consecutive year of visiting Badlands National Park.  I have backpacked it in every month, explored it in every season, come with family, friends, tour groups, and college classes.  I was proud.  So I mentioned to the ranger at the Visitor Center - this personal fact.  He said, "that's nice."  I was deflated.  I have not been back for two years, but this trip with the twin grandsons was enough to reignite the passion I have for this remote and challenging land. The prairie birds in the surrounding grasslands are enough to entertain me. I loved the western kingbirds, Lark buntings, Upland sandpipers and Western Meadowlarks of the Buffalo National Grassland, but most fun for the grandsons was the common Killdeer and its little fluffy, long legged offspring. We spent a long time listening to and observing the behavior of the grassland birds.  This group is reduced in population all over the country so it i...

Our trip west with grandson's Aren and Ryan Carlson would take us to many wonderful National Parks and Monuments and the first, though lesser know was Pipestone - a small Monument in SW Minnesota. Here the focus is on the Native Americans who frequented this site for generations and the stone that drew them.  It is also an example of prairie habitat. This place was celebrated in a classic painting by the artist Catlin and showed the quarrying of pipestone - which unfortunately was then given the name catlinite - ridiculous even though we like Catlin's work. The important thing about this site is that it is still a place where Indians come to collect the soft claystone for creating pipes and other pieces of art. There is usually a Native artisan in residence carving within the visitor center.  A very good set of displays to explore the geologic story of the land and the Indian's connection with it.  Outside there are the active pits and a paved trail that leads you t...

The flood waters have left the Moose Horn and the upper Kettle.  Willow River now has a dry main street and the homes in Rutledge are being cleaned and dried, but the water is still moving.  At Banning State Park the Rapids are ferocious.  The water is moving rapidly through this canyon, but the walls confine the spread and concentrate the energy in the middle.  Where it is interrupted the water piles upon itself until it finds places where it can get out of the banks and release the energy. Below Sandstone it flows over Hidden Falls, a waterfall that had been covered up by a dam for over 30 years.  Two days ago the water was so high that there were no falls; today the lowering water showed some of the drop. We had our daughter-in-law, Kristin and our Granddaughter Teagan along with us on our exploration. A stop in Sandstone to get groceries presented the opportunity to support the local PTO by purchasing brats and burgers outside of Chris'...

Because of the floods our trip to Itasca became one day instead of two and we had to drive south from Willow River to get around the closed roads and bridges to find a route we could use to go west.  This took us around Lake Mille Lacs, over to Brainerd, then up to Walker and on to Itasca. There I received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Minnesota Association of Environmental Education (MAEE). This was an amazing honor and wonderful recognition from my peers. The event was held at the Mary Gibbs Center in Itasca State Park - the headwaters of the Mississippi River and an important part of our 2013 expedition. Lake Itasca is shaped like a slingshot and the river drains out of the north end over a series of slippery stepping stones.  It is hard to envision the small stream that exits the lake to be the same river as the industrial waterway we saw near New Orleans. The Mississippi starts in the true north - land of red and white pines and Minnesota...