American snapshot: Road trip

One of my favorite things about taking off with my mom during summer vacation for a road trip is her willingness to stop at all the random odd sights that I've dug up while researching our route. Often these little breaks end up being the highlight of our trip, which can only be the case when I am with someone who is willing to humor my sense of the absurd and doesn't sigh too much when we only make it a couple of hundred miles in a day (instead of a more normal 600 or so when we are actually trying to get somewhere). Together we're discovering that the journey is definitely part of the fun. A brief highlight of some of my favorites from this summer (thanks in good part to my go to guide: Roadside America "Your online guide to offbeat tourist attractions"):

There was the skeleton boy leading a skeleton dinosaur
somewhere off of I-90 in South Dakota

The graffiti art alley in Rapid City, South Dakota
"My people will sleep for 100 years and when they wake 
it will be the artists who give them back their spirit."

Where we also stopped at a Storybook Island,
the children's section of the city park which had fabulous photo opportunities
with over sized cartoon and movie characters.

A giant spider made out of a VW bug in a field of Lexington, Oklahoma

Oversized metal water lilies in Riverside Park in Wichita, Kansas

Which also had a troll hidden under a grate on one of the sidewalks by the river

The world's largest ball of Sisal Twine in Cawker City, Kansas

Where we also walked the twine trail (no matter how many times we tried to say this out loud it always came out as the twine twail...) which took us by store fronts containing replicas of art masterpieces with a addition of a ball of twine somewhere in the painting.

And my favorite roadside stop of the trip: Carhenge (Alliance, Nebraska)

With stops like these, who cares what the purpose of the trip was?

American snapshot: Grand Teton National Park

If you head out of Yellowstone Park to the south you can't help but drive through Grand Teton National Park, the second national park of our summer trip. You can tell that this park is used to people just driving through and wanting to see a bit of what is on offer. When we stopped to get a bit of information the volunteer was able to give us a driving route, with recommended stops, that would take us a few hours to get through with enough time to actually get out of the car and walk for a bit. The entire time you are in the park the view is dominated by the Teton mountains towering over the landscape. I consistently found myself looking west unable to draw my eyes away from the majestic mountains. We stopped for a picnic lunch along the river where we could soak in their towering heights reflected back by the water. Father along we stopped for a short walk near some of the recreational areas (in some ways the park reminded me of a state park in terms of its recreational usage than a national park, although there is no denying that its natural landscape deserves national protection) where the obvious views were still enchanting but I also was absorbed by the northern version of bluebonnets and paintbrushes with their taller growth. A later stop took us to the chapel of transfiguration where the view was the entire focal point of the chapel. Why put in stain glass when a clear window will reveal one of God's masterpieces behind the altar? A turn and a head back into the park by a different road led us to Snake River Overlook, a spot where Ansel Adams took a few of his stunning photographs. You know I had to do my best to capture a piece of that in black and white. On our way out of the park we took a small detour along a dirt road where we happily stopped to watch the buffalo cross, taking their time, rubbing their heads against posts, bending down to nibble a bit of grass and keeping the calves moving. This park definitely has its own unique draw; even if it is often overshadowed by its larger more well-known northern neighbor.