Discovering South Dakota

My new friend recently added a blog post centered around some random facts about himself. This is a great idea, and if he doesn’t mind me ‘borrowing’ it to a certain degree, then I may just let you all get to know me a bit better (adding to the info you can already obtain from my past posts) – be afraid, be very afraid 😉 Just kidding. I’m actually not very scary, and not all that interesting either!

*Side note* If you haven’t read any of his blog posts, then please give them a try. You’ll find him here. I thoroughly enjoy reading his posts – his honesty is refreshing, and there’s always something funny thrown in there to make you smile. 

But my blog today is a little unusual, because it’s a very brief review for a place I have never been. What happened was this: In sharing with my new friend the list of places the children and I would like to visit in the USA, the suggestion was made that perhaps I should also look at South Dakota. I am delighted (my bank account, not so much) to say that I have added it to our list. Without further ado, I give you the results of my ‘research’ – although mostly it’s the reasons I want to visit….and the things I want to see.

I’m a rivers and lakes and mountains and trees kind-of-girl. South Dakota has all of this, by the looks of it – and more.
Mountain Lions. There are mountain lions. I’m sold! How amazing to see one in real life – so long as I’m far enough away for there to be no casualties. (There are plenty of lions where I live, and two years ago I was holding a white lion cub in my arms – but there’s something strange and wonderful about a mountain lion, for me anyway.)

I read that along the rivers there are some beautiful trees. I would need to find those rivers – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Cottonwood Tree before, and it looks amazing in the Autumn from the pictures I found. Willows are just one of my very favorite kinds of trees, and they appear to be near rivers too. Rivers may require some hiking – but at least I could then work off (and have a fantastic excuse for over-consumption of) all the delicious ‘holiday’ foods I’d be eating!

Mount Rushmore is a big South Dakota attraction – hey, I’m a tourist, and I’d like my kids to get a little education too 😉 (I suppose I need to brush up on my American history knowledge, because I did not know that Mount Rushmore was in South Dakota *hangs head in shame*.)

Beaver Creek Bridge, and all the national parks, look so very wonderful to me – I reckon I could find my ‘relaxation’ again and just sit there all day!

Native American Indian culture has always been of interest to me – so it’s no wonder ‘Sioux Falls’ sounded familiar – in fact, I felt like an idiot when reading up about South Dakota because there are so many ‘names’ that I recognize. And for good reason too! Of course visiting Deadwood is a must – I have loved the ‘Wild West’ since I was a little girl.

My friend told me to have a look at Huron…
So, moving on to Huron specifically :

Pyle House Museum is a definite point of interest. That house is beautiful – there’s just something about it for me. And not just from the pictures I saw. In the description of it, I think it was the ‘original oak woodwork’ part that really got my attention and confirmed it’s place on the list of things I’d like to see.
Naturally, Splash Central would sell this visit to my daughter, and bring added delight to our travel list for the USA 😉
Godfather’s Pizza – it’s all in the name….it helps that I happen to love pizza too! With a name like that, I simply cannot resist!

There are just so many beautiful gardens, I could spend days there – the scent of flowers in the air, the peacefulness of possibly the buzzing of bees (so long as they don’t decide I smell like a flower or sting me 😛 ) and the distant song of a bird perhaps? Ah, the small pleasures in life!

I think I’ll give the Golf Course a skip, but if you can manage to hit a golf ball without busting up all the turf around it, unlike me, then it may be worth a look…for us, I think Toboggan Hill could be fun. It would be our first time though, so we’d need to be careful – a trip to the emergency room is not on my list!

I found a ‘calendar of events’, and I want to go to all of them, HA!!! I have also found that some of the things are Season specific. So I guess I’d need to visit for at least a year. That kind of messes up travel plans, unless I suddenly win a rather large amount of money, which would allow for a very much extended holiday – perhaps three years might do for all the places I want to visit and things I want to see 😛

And last but certainly not least: the library in Huron has a coffee bar???!!!??? Can you tell by the punctuation that I am not only astounded but extremely excited by this! 😉 I understand that it may be a ‘regular’ thing in the US, but it is non-existent here! A combination of two of my favorite things – coffee and books – can’t go wrong!

Yip. Added to the travel list! 😉

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