Sunday, August 25, 2019

More Travel Journal and Snapshots

 Hi everyone. Hope you are enjoying your weekend. 
It is really crisp here in New Hampshire today and feels more like late September or October than August. It does not feel like summer, and they say another day of rough seas so no boating this weekend for us.
Thought I would share a few more pages from my Dakota travel journal.
I am showing this spread twice because the top photo is a better view of the right page and the bottom photo is a better view of the left. Both pages have images cut out of a newspaper, and I find fussy cutting newspaper doesn't always go that well.
Custer State Park in South Dakota, which is what these pages (especially the one on the right)  are inspired by, has some fascinating little one way tunnels.






 I really like this park. On the right side I used the newspaper map, our car window sticker that showed we paid to be there, as well as a little sticker. on the left I used the rest of the stickers from the set, as well as that funny car sticker which I added the exhaust and the driver. I stamped the mammoth because south of the park there is a mammoth paleontological dig site which we visited.
Here's some views from Custer State Park as well as the mammoth dig site.





And the mammoth dig site:


 You can see here the skull and some tusks from multiple mammoths. These bones are believed to be 25,000 years old and the animals died because they fell into a sinkhole and couldn't get out. There is no evidence from this site that they were hunted here. They also found fossil bones of giant extinct bears, giant extinct buffalo, camels and even dire wolves.  (Fun fact, horses and camels evolved here in North America and then left through various land bridges that formed during glacial times. Horses were brought back by Europeans, and camels have just plain disappeared except for those at farms or zoos.)
And in the attached museum they had many of the removed fossil bones, as well as some that came from elsewhere. This fossilized body of a baby mammoth was from a cave in Siberia and displayed in a climate control case. To me it is truly amazing how the Siberia permafrost and ice maintained the skin and hair of this animal that has been dead for over 10,000 years.

And lastly, a couple more pages. The postcards are ones of when Mount Rushmore was being carved. Mount Rushmore shows the heads of some early American presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. For those of you who might not be familiar with these people, they were all presidents who played a major role in our country, from being the first president, writing the Declaration of Independence, being the first environmental president to releasing the slaves and navigating through the Civil War of the 1860's. (As well of course as many other things)
Mount Rushmore is right outside of Custer State Park and is a very iconic American place.

OK, I think I have maybe 1 or 2 posts left from this and then I can say I am done posting about it.
Or least a lot of the highlights. (It took me 5 Shutterfly books to do my trip photos so be glad I am only giving you glimpses. Smile).
Enjoy whatever time you have left of your weekend.

10 comments:

Valerie-Jael said...

Wonderful photos, my faves are the mammoths they dug out, wow! I know they found mammoths in London when they were digging out one of the metro stations years ago. That Siberian one is fantastically preserved. Great pages from your travel journal, too, that was really a memorable vacation for you. Hugs, Valerie

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

OMGosh. Where do I start? I love how you treated those tunnels. Did you stamp the car? This is wonderful and the photos that you took in the tunnels is a good way to show how narrow they are. Did you rent the car you drove Kansas? Looks that way. I'm really claustrophobic, so those tunnels really made me nervous.

The Mammoth Dig Site has really grown since I was there. It was nowhere near as large and the Mammoth display was not there. I knew that Asian elephants were different from African because of their ears, BUT I had no idea the size was so different, too. What a fun experience and I was glad to see you made it to Hot Springs. Yes, I'm reliving your trip with you.

I wondered if you were going to visit Mount Rushmore. That was my main reason for going to So Dakota. Of course, being curious, I stumbled onto the other attractions. Unlike you, I had no internet to guide me before hand, so I picked up brochures everywhere I went. I didn't want to miss a thing!

I can't wait to see what other places you went because I have a couple of places I went that I hope you didn't miss. Thanks for taking me on this trip and sharing memories with me.

Words and Pictures said...

That's a great painting of the dark ominous entrance to the tunnel (and oh, I hear you on photos where one bit is good and the other bit is bad and then vice versa on the next photo... thanks for sharing both!). More amazing rock formations, and I love your page full of animal life. The Rushmore carving has always blown my mind - probably hands-down the most amazing piece of outdoor art in the world. Great to see the progress photo, and I love how you've attached it to reveal the second snap behind.
Alison x

craftytrog said...

Fascinating photos and wonderful pages Erika! Those tunnels look very tricky.
Have a good week,
Alison xx

CJ Kennedy said...

Your journal pages are so entertaining. So much to look at. I don't think I would like driving through those tunnels. The mammoth exhibit is cool. I can't get my head around how big they really were. And it's amazing that the cold could preserve the hair on the baby mammoth. Mount Rushmore is very impressive even if the sculpture was never completed. Bundle up this morning, it's chilly out there! Have a good day!

Divers and Sundry said...

I love the similarities/contrasts between your painting of the tunnel and your photo of the same scene. What an exciting trip this must have been! with so much to see. I loved your mention of the camels here; that's a story that continues to fascinate me. Deserts just aren't the same here as in the camel's native land.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

I have been enjoying this recap of your summer road trip to the state parks, Erika. I especially liked seeing the one-way tunnels.

Hena Tayeb said...

Great photos. You have done a marvelous job capturing it in scrapbook as well.

Jeanie said...

Your travel journal is really quite special and I've enjoyed seeing a part of the country I've never visited through your eyes. I love how you did the tunnel on your page. Nice texture! And Mt. Rushmore -- it's as big as it seems!

froebelsternchen said...

Absolutely fascinating photos and pages Ertika! WOW!