July 16 ~ 22, 2001
One of my friend from the Mid-West told me "avoid the Mid-West" when he heard about my US Tour. I knew it was flat and boring. Also it was hot and humid. Based on these comments, I did nothing but drove west to the Western South Dakota, where things started to get interesting. This area is known as Black Hill, and is home to several national parks. The Black Hill is a huge granite mountain ranges sits on top of the prairier flat. I do not know where the granite came from. But this region is quite beautiful, with good contrast between the rugged granite rock and grassy prairie flat.
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Major Places I Visited
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About
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Mid-West States: After the Niagara Falls, I drove 2 days without any stops except for gas and food. This was the land of flat. Either forest, corn fields, or big cities, the scenery were the same. It was also hot and humid. After the tour, many people told me the northern part of Michigan and Wisconsin were beautiful. In the 3rd day, I finaly arrived Badlands National Park (1). The park had sandy canyons which looked kind of like the ones in Utah, but the canyons were smaller here. The Badlands situated in the middle of the great Prairie, the king of flat land. The canyons divides the Upper and Lower Prairie. Doesn't it sound interesting? The contrast between the steep canyons and flat prairie was very inspiring to me.
Looking down lower prairie plains from Badlands National Park.
Black
Hills of South Dakota: Next stop was the famous Mount Rushmore
National Memorial (2), a site of maginificant statue of 4 presidents
of the US. I've always wanted to visit the park after watching the movie
"North By NorthWest". However, when I first saw the statue from
the outside of the park, they looked very small. And then, I was offended
by $8.00 parking fee of the park. I was also a little disappointed when
I learned the statues were created to attract more tourists. But looking
at the statues in the park was impressive and park had good facilities.
Even more impressive than the Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial
(3) celebrates all the native tribes of the America. The statue is x times
larger than that of Mt. Rushmore. This is a work in progress. I saw a smoke
from explosions from the statue during the visit. The movie "Encounter
of a Third Kind" by Stevens SpielburgI must have made the Devils
Tower National Monument (4) very famous. The site was a very beautiful
and mysterious just in the movie. And the sunset and sunrise was beautiful.
In the campground, they were showing a movie. Of course the title was...
