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As we drove through Northern Nebraska, we saw some of the big sky for which this part of the country is noted. We tried to capture it below.
Hot Springs, South Dakota has one of the largest Mammoth archaeological sites in the world. Known appropriately as "The Mammoth Site", it holds the remains of more than 50 mammoths, both Woolly and Columbian. 26,000 odd years ago, this site was a large sinkhole, filled with water. The sides of the sinkhole were apparently not hard for mammoths to descend, but the slippery and/or muddy banks trapped them; they died of hunger or from drowning, their remains literally piling up upon one another at the bottom of the hole, with silt gradually covering them. There they sat until the 1970s, when construction equipment unearthed them. Here is an entire male mammoth skeleton, minus the head. He has thus been named "Murray Antoinette".
And here is a shot of the active portion of the dig. They dig for about 1 month per year, and then spend the remaining 11 months cataloguing the findings. At this rate, they estimate that this dig will be active for more than 20 years.
A model of a Paleolithic dwelling made of mammoth bones -- a common form of housing near present-day Russia many thousands of years ago. Jordan appears to be fleeing from the house's owner.
This little guy is a Pygmy Mammoth, a species found only on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands.
From Hot Springs, we drove up into Custer State Park, which I'll cover later. While at Custer, we drove back down to Hot Springs in order to food shop, run errands, and visit "The Evans Plunge", a hot springs fed public pool. It was a blast. The water was about 85, crystal clear, with no apparent chlorine odor. There were 2 water slides, a water basketball court, and a ring traverse. We played there for hours. Jordan, as she whooshed past me at one of the turns on the 'slow' slide.
And Jody at the same spot. Can you tell we were having fun?
This is the ring traverse. Despite what you see below, I did do more than just flail and fall -- I successfully got across all 6 rings twice in a row. The ladies attempted the crossing several times as well. We were all very sore over the next few days.
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