Chapter One of the Sabbatical Series: Giddy Up

I was very excited when Jami invited me to be her guest blogger. I believe her exact words were, "Krista, I have always loved and respected you. I would be honored to have your genius thoughts and opinions shared with the world." Okay, who am I kidding, I just threatened to tell mom if she didn't let me post. I guess some things never change!
The trip began in Flippin on Tuesday morning by picking up Uncle Terry. Thank you mom for the cooler of drinks and snacks! Thank goodness he wanted to go, it definitely made the trip fun! Anyone that has ever been on a road trip with me knows that I love to stop, thankfully, Uncle T does too! You could say we were "Taking the Long Way Around". He was happy to oblige when an interesting sign caught my eye, and I was happy to pull over and let him take pictures of wildlife. We made a great traveling pair. As you can see, we stopped at every state sign and a little place we like to call "The Rushmores". As I was telling mom via phone about this thing called the crazy horse that Uncle T wanted to see, he quickly informed me that it was called Crazy Horse, not The Crazy Horse. He said, "Crazy Horse is a man, you don't call me The Uncle Terry, do you?" I said, well actually sometimes I do!!! Apparently Crazy Horse was one of the last Indians to surrender, and this man and his family are carving a giant replica of him in a mountain, much like Mt. Rushmore. Uncle T saw this Crazy Horse in 1980 and 1990 and was curious to how it was coming along. I saw on the map where Mt. Rushmore was only a few miles from Crazy Horse. Mt. Rushmore is on my lifetime list, so I jumped at the chance to check it off! So Terry said if I get to see The Crazy Horse, then I guess we better visit "The Rushmores" too. That is how we ended up in Southern South Dakota! And in case you are interested, The Crazy Horse looks exactly the same as it did in 1980!!! Not too much progress...I'll post a pic next time!
We FINALLY made it late last night. And yes, I put my cowboy boots on when we crossed the state line!!! I was a great drive...one that I will cherish for the rest of my life, plus my list of places to visit before I die just got a little shorter! -Krista