Creating Futures in Haiti; by Learning, Guiding and Working Together!: Faces, Caves and Buffalo..

We have passed through several more states since our last blog and driven over 2,000 kilometers. So I guess we are overdue for a report. Driving across country has been interesting and then really BORING at other times. (Could I be talking about Nebraska?) We have set into a daily routine. We get up, leave Dexter in the room, have breakfast, sneak him something yummy to eat, as we are now in Missouri, he get grits and sausage, pack up and head out for the day. We are driving about 4-5 hours each day with about the same number of stops; Dexter gets hot in the truck and needs lots of water and bathroom breaks.

We then have the task of finding the hotel I booked online the previous evening, we tend to stay in Comfort Suites. They come in about $110 a night and it includes breakfast for the three of us. Some of them want to charge $25 for Dexter; we sneak him in as I think that is crazy, I don’t mind paying a fee, but $25 is insane. We tend to stay on the main highways, we did try a couple of the scenic routes but after you’ve seen one town consisting of twenty seven people and nothing but closed rundown buildings, you’ve seen them all. Very sad really, not sure what these folks do for a living… After Yellowstone we travelled to Deadwood where we were greatly disappointed! There so much they could have done with the history of the area, a great opportunity was missed to make Deadwood into an authentic old town. Instead it was a small town with the focus just on gambling. There were instants of interest, especially in the architecture of the houses on the hills.

The Bullock building was the Van Buren House were especially interesting. After Deadwood we travelled south to Mount Rushmore. Craig went into the monument area as we were not able to take Dexter, we are finding that everywhere, so that has been difficult. He found it spotlessly clean and well laid out, but there wasn’t much to do other than look at the carvings and the avenue of flags of all the states. We were both surprised that it was much smaller than we thought it would be. The drive in was really spectacular with many different viewpoints of the presidents.

On the recommendation of a couple that I met in the parking lot from Ontario while waiting for Craig we went to the Needle Highway which was only a slight detour on our way to Custer, South Dakota. The Needle Highway had stunning rock creations, and took us up a snaking road to over 8,000 feet altitude. It’s called the Needle Highway because there is a remarkable rock formation that has formed a needle hole about forty feet tall. We are pleased that we took the couples advice and made the detour.

Back on track now and off to Custer, South Dakota. We went to our hotel, dropped off Dexter and headed for the Jewel Caves, but we were too late to get a tour for that day. Craig was really disappointed. We then went to see Crazy Horse and that was worth every penny. We had a brilliant time learning about its history and seeing the magnitude of the project. I’m in still in awe that a man who had little or no connection to the Native Indians decided that he would take on this project with virtually no tools, alone and worked that way for decades. It’s an amazing story and I’ve attached the link if you want to learn more; highly recommend it!

We drove south after that, still in South Dakota to the Wind Caves as Craig really wanted to see some caverns. I stayed back with Dexter. On the way there we were fortunate to see a herd of buffalo on the side of the road and got some great photos. The caverns were interesting in their complexity but only had two outcrops of crystals in the entire one and a half hour tour. He met some people from Iowa who had been to the Jewel cabins the day before and had said that they were spectacular. Heading south from there to Hot Springs, we had great Mexican food, observed interesting architecture and the weather was starting to feel like we were getting closer to the south. I was feeling bad for Dexter having to walk on the pavement, I worried about his pads. We saw Yellow Wing Blackbirds at the park where we had lunch, but no luck on the getting photos.