State No. 33 & State No. 34 - Non-Chess Traveling Parts

I wrote most of the last post & this post this morning, the Friday the 21st of April, the day before the South Dakota Chess Tournament & incidentally, Princess Daisy's birthday today (Happy birthday Princess Daisy!)

Here is some artwork I commissioned a long ago from Instagram artist ogart64

I know it's a Christmas one, but it is one of my favorite art pieces that I ordered on commission.  To see some other Daisy screenshots from Mario Kart Tour, please see this Instagram post.

The way I arranged this trip is a little different since I am covering two states over the span of 10+ calendar days. I flew into Bismarck on Friday, & didn't get to do any sightseeing with the tournament the next day. I did get to do a drop-in at CrossFit Tertiary with Coach Bowen, & pictures may be seen from this Instagram post. I got lucky enough to watch Coach Bowen & two others perform an online competition test, 7 minutes of Burpees to a Target 6 inches above the athlete's reach.

After the Chess Tournament, I drove over to the Heritage Art Tunnel & the Bismarck Capitol Monument. 

After this, I drove west to Dickinson, & after dropping off my luggage, drove over to the Enchanted Highway, where seven metallic structures were built.  I took pictures out of order, so if you are more organized, you'll recognize which ones are not.

MS #1 - Geese in Flight - seen on I-94 WB & the start of the Enchanted Highway

MS #2 - Deer Crossing

MS #3 - Grasshoppers

MS #5 - Pheasants on the Prairie - probably my favorite of all of them.

MS #6 - Teddy Roosevelt Rides Again

MS #7 - Tin Family - first of the sculptures to be created

Cool! - Knight vs. Dragon

I assume this is the Enchanted Castle, though as it was getting dark, I couldn't go inside as I didn't want to travel back to my hotel in the dark on roads with no lights.

There was a sign pointing to this along the Enchanted Highway at MS #7, but I forgot what this is called.

MS #4 - Fisherman's Dream.  I missed this the first time because I was distracted by 3 tin cans on the other side of the road & I did not have google maps on at the time to tell me to turn.

Bonus fact about Geese in Flight - There are poles with geese on top of them lining the roadway up to this structure.

On Monday, I traveled to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  For whatever reason, this unit is Central Time Zone (Chicago) & less than a mile south of the entrance is Mountain Time Zone (Denver). Go figure.

Tilted Rock

More Tilted Rock

I travel up to River Bend Overlook so I can get a great view of the Little Missouri River.  I exit my car...and no sooner than I close the door is when I see 11 bison less than 20 feet in front of me cross the grassy environment toward the roadway to the right leading toward Oxbow Overlook. 

I saw this sign AFTER the scare of my life.

After a pause for a few minutes to make sure no more bison were in the area, & another pause of a minute after reading the above sign (there's no way I run as fast as 10 miles an hour now), I did get a few good pictures of the view at the overlook.

The problem is, after the bison scare, I was thoroughly affected.  I didn't try to go down to that little structure you saw above, & I didn't even finish the Little Mo Nature Trail below because I kept getting a feeling of more bison in the area.

On my way out of the park, I did take a picture of the Long X Trail where two brothers led cows through the little Missouri valley in this picture.

To calm myself down, I visited the Dickinson Musuem Center & Badlands Dinosaur Museum. I stumbled on an unlabeled typewriter used to teach typing in the 1930s.

Beach High School, Used to teach typing, keys are not labeled

There were also some art pieces produced by children for an art contest that I thought were excellent.

After the Museum, I went back to the hotel & walked to my second drop-in place, CrossFit Amicus. You can see pictures from my visit on my Instagram page here. My home gym, CrossFit Treehouse, was doing Cindy this week in preparation for Murph. I told my friends in the thread that if no one did Cindy, I would find a pullup bar separately to do it.  Well, CrossFit Amicus was doing Half Murph as their WOD on Monday.  No more need to find a separate pullup bar!  BTW, my classmates cheered me on even though I was the last one to finish (33:44).

Please bear with me, I had notes written about Tuesday's trip from Dickinson to Rapid City, including a trip to Mount Rushmore & the Presidential statue Scavenger Hunt & a visit to Press Start Arcade that I lost!!  I will try to recount as much as I can from the lost notes.

1) Once I left Dickinson, ND, I didn't see another traffic light until Rapid City, SD, a span covering over 3 hours & 12 minutes!! (I don't remember when I left the Dickinson boundary, somewhere after 8:49 am, but the time of the traffic signal in Rapid City was 12:12pm.)

2) It was a dream, driving down these two lane state roads with very few cars on them. (Exception the dirt roads between SD 79 / SD 34 & when I boarded I-90 East

3) Looking ahead to the Thursday trip, there were three separate occasions between where I boarded & Sioux Falls where one direction of I-90 was closed & traffic was separated by thin cone sticks on the other direction for two way traffic to proceed.

4) The path I chose to go Dickinson to Mount Rushmore did have a 2 hour 36 minute stretch of no gas stations. Newell, South Dakota ended that streak as there were gas stations a quarter to a half mile to the south after this post.

Mount Rushmore was a lot of fun. The accessible part of the President's Trail will give you most of the closer good views you need.  The 250 steps they claim to be strenuous aren't bad if you start on the accessible side as the 250 steps will go down.  The 250 steps are also scattered. What did surprise me was this statistic that I saw.

Getting selfies by yourself is difficult.  My IG has another attempt that makes me look even older.

Avenue of the Flags is arranged in alphabetical order.

You didn't think I was going to pass this selfie up, did you?

The zero deaths stat was very surprising.

I then went on a scavenger hunt for the presidential statues. The local Mount Rushmore Society Office in Rapid City has a folder with all the presidential statues locations & 10 pictures you have to find.  Two statues were removed due to construction & I believe one of them had the missing picture I couldn't find. I did find the 9 other pictures, so I brought my scavenger hunt scorecard in the next day (Wednesday), pointed out the problem, & they still gave me the reward for a completed scorecard, which was a water bottle that contained a few stickers & a 10% discount off items bought in the store. I had to bring it in Wednesday since they were closed when I was finished at 6pm.

Instagram did a terrible job of cropping pictures, so I am going to present some of the funny selfies I took on this scavenger hunt, along with beautiful traffic signal controllers overlaid with artwork (except bison, those did not get pictures taken. I don't like any kind of bison whether they move 30 miles per hour or have iron fists), a speed limit 20 sign in the downtown area, & pictures of my next stop on the trip.

Lincoln & I both looking down in a sense.

Millard Fillmore wondering what I am doing.

When I saw this statue of William Henry Harrison, I somehow thought the face looks like a movie actor.

20 mph is very unusual in my profession as a speed limit outside of private residential or retail areas.

You better believe I was going to check Press Start, the Video Game Arcade Place after the scavenger hunt.

I can't believe this is the same president (Taft) that was rumored to have gotten stuck in a bathtub. He looks like he is posing as a baseball pitcher!

Press Start has a Super Mushroom Light!

I really like this selfie where Ford looks one way & I look another.

Eisenhower & I looking ahead.

Benjamin Harrison & I looking at the ground.

After the scavenger hunt, I changed into Knicks Toad (the same character I dress up as on the NBA talks Podcast I occasionally do with my friends on i80 Sports) & went inside Press Start.

Knicks Toad ready to Press Start!

Luigi has a Mario Party game to check out!

I wish I wasn't driving so I could drink off this menu.

Standard Fake Alcoholic Drink you know I consume.

I love the no smoking or vaping sign.

The Smash Bros. Pizza - Pepperoni Bacon Cream Cheese

Sonic in Blacklight Art

Humorous Employees Only Sign

The next day (Wednesday), I went to South Dakota Air & Space Museum.  Right now, this is an outdoor only museum, as the interior is closed for renovations. (Be sure to wear jackets & extra sweaters as necessary).  I will show you planes that had my favorite descriptions &/or nicknames &/or stories.

F-105B Thunderchief, nicknamed Thud.

Air crews & ground crews accepted the nickname.

O-2A Skymaster, nicknamed the "Duck".

Most planes have nicknames.  

I don't know why this F-86H Sabre was nicknamed Miss Janet & there was no one on site to try to answer this question.

There was also an interesting photo of General Dwight D. Eisenhower & his marks on being a pilot on this site.

After dropping by the Mount Rushmore Society location to deal with the end of the scavenger hunt, I picked up at the place a book on flag care. (If I ever get my own house, I would consider displaying flags.)

Later that day, I visited Kados CrossFit. The exciting thing about this WOD was that it was a choose your own adventure WOD!! The coach & the other athletes were awesome about cheering you on, & several of us got to talk afterward.  Unlike the first two places, they actually had t-shirts for purchase, so I was able to get a t-shirt for myself as part of my drop in, & then two t shirts for my sister & her husband.

One of the coaches at Kados mentioned I should visit Badlands National Park on my way driving east on Thursday from Rapid City to Sioux Falls. I was concerned as this was already going to be a long drive, but I think the detour was worth it.  If I had to do Wednesday & Thursday again, I would do Badlands on Wednesday & SD Air & Space on Thursday so as to minimize the added driving on Thursday & give Badlands more time to visit.  You can see some pictures here.  The views were really nice.  It was windy again, so any videos I might have taken got my voice at least partially drowned out.

By the way, after Badlands, I started driving east knowing I wanted to go to Chamberlain Rest Stop & World's Only Corn Palace before getting to Sioux Falls.  There were two areas of part of I-90 closed for construction in one direction with the traffic redirected to the other direction as discussed earlier.  Other oddities noticed while driving were:

1) part of the highway is red in color - I thought I was driving on never-ending tennis courts.

2) There were parts of I-90 set up for closure for random events that necessitate closing of the highway.  Parts of the setups include gates & signs with flashers ready to turn on at the correct command of the responsible state official.

3) Time zone changes can really be hard to navigate planning & executing.

I am glad I got to visit Dignity and Lewis & Clark at the Chamberlain Rest Stop. There really should be more signs on I-90 highway, but I was lucky to know about this before the trip started.  My original plan was to eat a quick lunch & then go to the World's Only Corn Palace. However, it was already past 3:15 pm CDT & the corn palace at 1 hour & 9 minutes away was only open until 5 pm. So, I had to skip lunch & drive to Mitchell, SD

As my friend said, you don't direct a trip to South Dakota solely for the Corn Palace, but if you happen to be visiting, you could visit.  The Corn Palace actually has a basketball court in it to host basketball games & is apparently hosting a circus on Monday, April 25. What surprised me more was the connection of Mike Miller to the Palace & Bob Barker to South Dakota.  You might remember Mike Miller winning at least 1 NBA title with the Miami Heat when teamed up with Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, & LeBron James. And of course, everyone remembers Bob Barker as the legendary host of the Price is Right until about 2007 or so.

The concession stand was open, but I opted not to eat anything there.

I completed my drive to Sioux Falls, & walked over to the nearby mall to get food. I know I debated sightseeing in Sioux Falls today prior to the trip, but I think I made theright choice to not do so as my body was mostly tired from the long drive & it was snowing & hailing today at some point!! So I spent today finishing up the blogposts.  Stay tuned for the Chess portion of State No. 34 soon!

#fiftystatesofchess