Badlands National Park, South Dakota

My husband and I were fortunate to be able to take a road trip vacation this year through South Dakota and Wyoming. This is the first in a series of posts I want to do about the places we visited.

Badlands National Park was the first place that we went. Not knowing what to expect I was awed by the landscape, and couldn't help but wonder what travelers in earlier times, before the ability to share photographs, might have thought coming upon this with no warning. The area was established first as a monument in 1939 and redesignated as a national park in 1978. It is an interesting mixture of formations that came about through erosion, from buttes and pinnacles to spires.




Though desolate in appearance it actually is teeming with wildlife. There is a large praire dog colony around the edge of the northwest side of the park. We saw a few solitary buffalo in the distance, and got up close and almost personal with a bighorn sheep when it came up over the side to the top where we were standing. We just edged out of the way, and it continued on, I'm sure not as surprised as we were with the number of visitors that come to the park all the time. The area is also rich in fossils, some of the most important being those of early horses, allowing scientists to trace the evolutionary history from the 5-toed animals to the horses we are more familiar with today.




There is much human history in the area as well. The Ogalala Lakota of the Sioux Nation are co-managers of the area, and evidence of habitation stretches back into pre-historic times. In more recent times, the southern unit of the park was used as a bomb and gunnery range by the US Military.  This area has been returned to the Sioux, and while attempts were made to remove any unexploded munitions, I did see warnings in some media to be aware there may be more there and to alert rangers if they were found.  This area of the park is not as easily accessible as the main park, so we did not visit (we're not big hikers), but photos showed some very interesting formations there.

For more information on this area, see the official website for Badlands National Park and Wikipedia.  I also shared information from this Badlands book we picked up while there.  It is well worth a visit!

Water Lily and Fish

Yes I am ridiculously excited about my water lily, and was happy to discover I was wrong, they do last more than a day, they last a few days, they just open and close during the day. Since the fish are never where you want them, and never stay long in one place, I took a little video.

Water Lily

It's vacation day two, and we have achieved a water lily flower! Sadly they only last one day, so I'm glad I caught it when I did, as it's already starting to close back up! Had to include the fish picture: "Hey, quit taking pictures and feed me already!"

Vacation!

I'm on vacation! We're not going anywhere, but still, 5 days off work, which is 9 days in a row of doing whatever we want, yay! So I'm issuing myself a little book challenge, I want to finish one book every day, but since I still want to do all kinds of other fun things too, they'll be easy things like Manga, or fast children's or teen books, but still, it will be getting some things off Mount TBR! I hope to get some challenge books reviewed as well this week. Wish me luck!

I'm not sure what we'll be doing this week, hopefully a lot of relaxing, with a movie and some computer games thrown in. We're going to a concert one night (YES/Styx), a dinner theater production next Sunday afternoon (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), and maybe a day trip to get some geocaching in. The possibilities are endless, as long as we don't stay planted in front of the computer! :D

What I'm not excited about is that we might be getting our new roof this week, so that means a lot of hammering. *sigh*

One of my water lily plants also shot up a bloom overnight, so I hope to see that flower soon! Here's a picture of it from this morning (along with some fish action), I'll post again if it turns out good!

Thursday Thirteen #7 - Milton Hershey the Chocolate King or My Trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania

I started out thinking that this would be a thirteen devoted to my trip, and probably very touristy, however, as I learned more about the man responsible for Hershey Chocolate, and town of Hershey Pennsylvania itself, it quickly became clear to me that this needed to be about him, that just like I knew nothing about where Hershey Chocolate came from, probably many other people would not as well. It’s a lot to read, I’m sorry, I keep thinking I’ll be brief and it never happens!

Courtesy of Wikipedia , photos by yours truly ;)

1. Milton Snavely Hershey (September 13, 1857 – October 13, 1945) was a confectioner, philanthropist, and founder of The Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pennsylvania.


2. Hershey was born on a farm near Derry Church, Pennsylvania, the only surviving child of Henry and Fanny Hershey. Due to the family's frequent moves he dropped out of school after the fourth grade and was then apprenticed to a Lancaster, Pennsylvania printer. The apprenticeship was soon terminated as he did not like the craft and purposely let his hat fall into the printing press.


3. His first two ventures into the candy business failed, but in 1883 he established the Lancaster Caramel Company, which succeeded spectacularly, and it was this business that established him as a candy-maker. (Mmmmm Caramel!)


4. Hershey became fascinated with the machinery to make German chocolate exhibited at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and bought the equipment for his Lancaster plant. He soon began producing a variety of chocolate creations. Despite the success of his caramel company, Hershey determined that the chocolate industry had more promise than caramel. He sold the Lancaster Caramel Company for one million dollars in 1900 (a very large sum of money at the time), but retained the chocolate business and the rights to produce chocolate products.


5. With the proceeds from his caramel business sale, Hershey purchased 40,000 acres of dairyland near his birthplace of Derry that would allow him access to the quantities of milk he would need to develop a milk chocolate formula (at the time a Swiss luxury), and built a factory on it from1903-1905. Hershey's milk chocolate quickly became the first nationally marketed product of its kind.


6. Hershey envisioned a complete community around his factory. He built a model town for his employees that included comfortable homes, an inexpensive public transportation system, a quality public school system and extensive recreational and cultural opportunities. Hershey avoided building a faceless company town with row houses. He wanted a home town with tree-lined streets, single- and two-family brick houses, and manicured lawns. He was concerned about providing adequate recreation and diversions, so he built HersheyPark which opened on 24 April 1907, and expanded rapidly over the next several years. Amusement rides, a swimming pool, and a ballroom were added. Soon, trolley cars and trains were bringing thousands of out-of-town visitors to the park.



Yes, there really is a Chocolate Avenue, and yes, those really are Hershey Kiss shaped street lights. Some of them are wrapped and some of them aren't, and I believe the banners are able to spin, so the wind turns them. ;)


7. Many of the town's structures were built during the Great Depression, as part of Milton Hershey's "Great Building Campaign," to provide jobs. It was then that structures such as the Hotel Hershey (unbelievable, built during the depression?! Wow!! We actually didn’t stay there, but the pictures I’ve seen are beautiful!), community center, Hershey Theatre, the HersheyPark Arena and HersheyPark Stadium were constructed, transforming the town into a tourist attraction.


8. On May 25, 1898 Hershey married Catherine "Kitty" Sweeney. Since the couple could not have children, they decided to use their successes to benefit others, opening the Hershey Industrial School in 1909. Catherine died prematurely in 1915 and Hershey never remarried.


9. In 1912, the Hersheys were to travel on the ill-fated British luxury liner RMS Titanic. However, they canceled their reservations because Mrs. Hershey was ill at the time.


10. This is the answer to a question that hubby and I had, since the Hershey’s didn’t have any children of their own, and Hershey himself was the only surviving child of his parents, who benefits from the company now? The answer is actually very nice! In 1918, three years after Catherine's death, he endowed the school with his entire fortune of Hershey Chocolate Company stock. He took great pride in the growth of the school, the town, and his business. For the rest of his life, he always placed the quality of his product and the well-being of his workers ahead of profits. In 1918, Hershey transferred the majority of his assets, including control of the company, to the formation of the Milton Hershey School Trust, to benefit the Industrial School. The trust fund has a majority of voting shares in The Hershey Company, allowing it to keep control of the company. In 1951, the school was renamed the Milton Hershey School. The Milton Hershey School Trust also has 100% control of Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company, which owns The Hotel Hershey and HersheyPark, among other properties.


11. In 1935, Hershey established The M.S. Hershey Foundation, a private charitable foundation that provides educational and cultural opportunities for Hershey residents. The Foundation supplies funding for three entities: The Hershey Museum and Hershey Gardens, the Hershey Theatre and the Hershey Community Archives. Hershey Gardens as it is today has a replica of Mrs. Hershey’s Rose Garden (or they may have moved the actual garden to that location, that’s what I get for having a faulty memory!). It was quite impressive, unfortunately we just missed the tulip displays, and nothing else had really gotten going yet, but they have a cute children’s garden and some really impressive trees! The two that I’ve shown here are actually “walk thru trees” and you can see where they’ve been supported over the pathway. They’ve also got a couple of giant redwoods, so that was neat to see too!




12. Hershey Chocolate supplied the US military with chocolate bars during World War II. These bars were called Ration D Bars and Tropical Bars. The Tropical Bars were designed to not melt in the tropical weather. It is estimated that between 1940 and 1945, over 3 billion of the Ration D Bars and Tropical Bars were produced and distributed to soldiers throughout the world. In 1939, the Hershey plant was capable of producing 100,000 ration bars a day. By the end of World War II, the entire Hershey plant was producing ration bars at a rate of 24 million a week. For their service throughout World War II, the Hershey Chocolate Company was issued five Army-Navy 'E' Production Awards for exceeding expectations for quality and quantity in the production of the Ration D Bar and Tropical Bar.


13. Chocolate World – Honestly I’m not sure when or how or why Chocolate World happened except that it is of course the main souvenir/candy place in the town. My husband recalls that they used to give tours of the actual Hershey factory, but quit because they did not people touching things, as I think we can all understand! There is a ride inside Chocolate World that takes you through a simulated factory and shows the candy producing process, complete with singing puppet cows! LOL! They had a few types of Kisses and such that I haven’t seen at home, so of course we came home with candy! They had also introduced a new Hershey Bar with a green tea flavored filling, it’s very green inside! Tastes nice though, not being a green tea fan I didn’t know what to expect, but it was subtle.



There is actually a lot of information out there about Mr. Hershey, so I was a little surprised that I hadn’t known more about him than I did. It was definitely an interesting trip, and I feel like I got a first hand history lesson to boot! Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday Thirteen #4 - The American Southwest or My Honeymoon

TT gave us a theme this time, and since this was something I had considered doing already, I decided now was as good a time as any! Since last week was my anniversary, I’ve decided to talk about the places we went on our honeymoon! It was a wonderful trip, and I’d really like to go back to these places and take my Mom, because I know she’d enjoy it!

1. We started off by driving down to Carlsbad, New Mexico where we spent a couple of days to go through Carlsbad Caverns. The Cavern is extensive and there are different tours of varying degrees of difficulty, in addition to the large self tour that is open all the time. If you are interested in caves, you should try to get here, you can easily spend several days if you wanted to do more than one tour, and you HAVE to stay for the bat flight in the evening! It was quite a site!
These pictures are a bit fuzzy because of the lighting. The first one is a look out across the vast room of the self-guided tour, and really doesn’t do the view justice. The next are just a few of the structures you can see, and by far not the most spectacular! We also saw several of the painted ponies, kind of like the cow parade, so I'll post the pictures of the ones we ran into, the fire pony is my favorite!



2. We made our way north next, and HAD to stop at Rosewell, New Mexico, just to say we’d been there, and to stock up on alien stuff! Check out the International UFO Museum and Research Center to fulfill all your alien needs! You can even take the virtual tour on the website, I think they show just about everything! The last pic is of my husband next to his ride to his home planet... (hey, he's the one that claims to be the alien!)



3. On the way to Albuquerque we drove through the Valley of Fires We didn't actually stop along the way, in fact didn't even know what it was, except for a sign. It seems to be a big black lava field that has since been broken up over time. I'd like to check it out next time we're out that way, it was kind of eerie!

4. Outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico we stopped at Petroglyphs National Monument and toured Bosa Negra Canyon.



5. Once in Albuquerque we visited the BioPark, which is a zoo, aquarium and botanical garden all connected to each other. This was a nice trio of attractions. The most memorable thing for me was the children’s garden, with a big topiary dragon out front, and giant veggies and bugs (and a spider!) and such behind a castle wall that makes you feel like you’re down on the level of an insect, pretty fun! That's me leaning on the potato, because who wouldn't love a giant baked potato?!



Also in Albuquerque they had a nice natural history museum, with a good dinosaur display! It was a bigger place than it looked! They even had their own version of painted ponies, painted pterosaurs (ok, I don't remember what they were actually called, but it sounded good!)



6. Chaco Canyon was an especial favorite of mine, as it was a place we'd talked about in my college anthropology classes, but that I never thought I would actually visit! They are like cliff dwellings, only on the ground, and much larger. Out in the middle of nowhere pretty much, but to me, well worth it! There are several larger sites all in the same area, the last picture is what one of the more well known of them would have looked like in it's own time period. Look at how all the stones are fit together! AMAZING! (yes, I'm an Anthropology geek, it seriously was a major experience for me, I cried...)



7. The Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest are connected, and I would suggest that if you're going to the Grand Canyon as well, that you see the Painted Desert first, as anything pales in comparison after the Grand Canyon! But Painted Desert, being my first experience at colorfully layered landscape, was beautiful! There were some more petroglyphs too, actually more spectacular in my opinion that Petroglyphs monument. I believe this one was called newspaper rock, and was quite extensive, my picture is only a small portion of the work. The last picture is one of the trees all polished up.



8. Meteor Crater is another out in the middle of nowhere place, but worth stopping in at least once. You can take tours along the rim and there is an observation deck outside, but it is sometimes shut down for very high winds (over/near 100 mph?) that make the walks dangerous. The deck was closed off the day we were there unfortunately.

9. The Grand Canyon... there's not a lot more to say than WOW. It's one of those things that even when you're looking right at it, it's hard to believe it. One of the places you must try to go. I won't say that you have to take a mule tour, I don't think I could do it, but even just looking out across it is worth the visit! The last picture is of the hotel where we ate dinner several times, with a patio area that you can sit and look out across the canyon.



10. Monument Valley is the image that is often shown as the epitome of the American Southwest. I'm pretty sure most people who've seen a western in a desert setting have seen a picture of Monument Valley. We arrived too late in the day to make it to the visitor center, but just the view is amazing!



11. Mesa Verde is probably what most people think of when they hear "cliff dwellings" and I think they've earned that right! You can't get to all of these, although there are some tours you can take, like in Carlsbad, of varying degrees of difficulty, but there is also one you can get to fairly easily by walking along a switchback trail (it's paved though, not too bad at all), the rest you can see from the road, there are stopping points with overlooks and good views. Can you see the ladder/handholds in the last picture? I wouldn't have made it living in these times! (there was also a stairway at Chaco Canyon that was just carved right into the top of a cliff that it looked like you would have had to be Spider Man to stay on! It was an amazing culture!)



My last two places I don't have any handy pictures of them... why? Because the day we were there, the fog was so thick, many people were getting lost because you couldn't see the street signs! So I'll link you to their websites, I've been there many times before, but was frustrated because I really wanted to share them with my husband and couldn't! So, poor guy has been near them, but not seen them! LOL!

12. Pikes Peak I highly recommend taking the cog railway tour, rather than driving this yourself. Save the wear and tear on your car and yourself, and enjoy the ride, instead of being scared to death by it! LOL!

13. Garden of the Gods was probably the most interesting geological park I'd seen before I visited Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon, and it will always hold a special place in my heart, I fell in love with it the first time I went there, probably I was around 12, and I just can't go to Colorado without going there. I was SOOOOO frustrated that I couldn't share it with hubby on our honeymoon. So we'll have to go back!

Wow, this post took much longer than expected (and caused some panic as I couldn't initially find the honeymoon pictures, but the husband saved the day and found them for me! LOL! Also credit to him for finding the Valley of Fires, because I couldn't remember what it was called!) but was a much needed rewalk through one of the neatest vacations I've been on! Hope you all enjoy, and can make it to some of these magnificent places!