No, it's Iowa. That is how Ray Kinsella responds to Shoeless Joe Jackson's question as he magically appears from the cornfield in the movie "Field of Dreams." As we drove through miles of endless cornfields through Iowa today on our road trip back east, nobody was asking if we were in Heaven. More the opposite, I imagine. Iowa was kind of like our Oklahoma leg of the journey west, we just needed to get through it. But it would have been a long day of driv...

Since our first night of our big summer road trip we have not stayed in a parking lot. We did stay two nights parked on the street down the hill from Greg and Christina's place, but technically not a parking lot. So, we were due. We had a long drive from the Badlands to Sioux Falls, and except sleeping, we had nothing on our itinerary that night in the thriving southeastern metropolis. We sprinkled in a few unreserved nights on our way back home just to save ...

The South Dakota license plates say it all, "Great Faces, Great Places." With the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, Needles Highway, The Minuteman Missle National Historic Site and the Badlands National Park, there are no doubt some great places that we visited while in lower of the two Dakotas. The "great faces" I am guessing refers to those of the four presidents carved in the granite of Mt Rushmore, and after my last diatribe on monuments, let me just say the same...

If you have an idea that you want to keep forever, find a really big rock that nobody can move and carve your idea into it so that it can't be erased. Simple. This is the basic premise of monuments and memorials. Make a statement that will live on for centuries. The trouble with this is coming up with the right message or memorializing the right person or event such that everyone agrees it is something worth honoring. This is the trouble found at Little Big ...

The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park are true wonders of nature. You have most likely seen the Ansel Adams photographs, but to let the landscape surround you is truly an experience. The colors that nature can conjure in a thermal pool, a reflected mountain in a pond, or the sky at sunset are awe inspiring. Artists, photographers and poets can try to capture the beauty of these parks, and as we visited the many sites throughout both, we saw them try. ...