"This is the Moment I've Been Waiting for My Whole Life."

In case it wasn't already marked on your calendars, this past Monday was my 23rd birthday!  To celebrate, my BFF from St. Ben's came to visit and we road tripped it out to Mt. Rushmore.  The drive is only about 3 hours, but it was incredibly windy (as always) and driving I90 wasn't super awesome.  But since Kara's family never subjected her to the horror that is an SD road trip, we had plenty of stops to make.

The first stop was the Badlands!  Since I am my father's daughter, I emailed Kara an itinerary for our trip weeks prior.  The Badlands weren't on there which prompted her to ask "can you handle going off the schedule?"  You betcha.

We met some nice ladies at the Badlands sign who took our picture.  Then we piled back into the Buick and headed on to Wall Drug!  If you've never been, go.  It is the land of kitschy crud and I think it's fabulous.  There's so much to make fun of and such good people watching! And where else can you ride a giant jackelope?  And Kara almost got sprayed by the water fountains in the ground :)

Now onto the final hour of driving and Kara falls asleep.  What good is bringing along a friend if she's not even going to talk to you???  Just kidding :)  But she did wake up in time to see Mt. Rushmore emerge from behind the Black Hills!

One thing I noticed at Mt. Rushmore was that the Native American perspective was pretty much ignored.  No mention that white dude completely defaced a sacred site with their "art".  Pssh, we just won't even mention it.  Granted tourists probably don't want to get into an ideological debate about manifest destiny and opression whilst on family vacay, but it's an important issue especially at a site that is touted as representative of our national identity.

We hiked around the woods and said "hi" to George from every angle and then drove back into Rapid City for some groceries before heading to our campsite.  We stayed at Palmer Gulch KOA which is the same campground I stayed at with Baby Bro and the 'rents 14 years ago.  My dad thought that was hilarious.  But it was totally worth the $9 resort fee!  Just after we showed up, there was a free wine tasting.  Then one of the KOA slaves drove us back to our campsite with our firewood so we didn't have to schlep it the whole way.  Score.

Kara was clear that she was just there to look pretty and be naturey.  She's the beauty, I, apparently, was the brawn.  So I got to gettin' setting up the tent, splitting wood (and not injuring myself!) and cooking dinner. 2 s'mores and a couple glasses of wine later and we were ready for bed...at 9:30pm.  Starting 23 off with a bang.

The next morning we packed up and stopped to hike in the national forrest for a bit.  Then onto lunch at the Firehouse Brewing Co. in Rapid.  Hist Pres follows me every where.  The restaurant was an adapted historic fire house and retained all the character defining features.  And they brew there own beer!  We decided to skip any more kitsch and just get on the road.  After ice cream for dinner and a quick tour of Pierre, we were ready to crash.  Being naturey is exhausting.

And We Dig, Dig, Dig, with a Shovel or a Pick

This week I went on possibly the coolest work-outing ever.  I got to participate in an archaeological dig in a cemetery!!

St. Ambrose Cemetery is in Deadwood, SD -- a big mining town back in the day.  The cemetery just got a big grant to rehab all the fences, clean the headstones, and put up interpretive signs.  There's this weird little section of land below the road that used to have headstones according to an old aerial photo, but there aren't any anymore.  And the mortuary that held all the burial records for Deadwood burned in 1935, so there's no other way to tell if anyone's buried besides digging.

the upper cemetery

The city wants to know if there are still any people buried in that part of the cemetery.  If so, they'll formally include it with a fancy fence and sign.  If not, it'll be converted to parking.  So out job for the day was to try and find bodies :)

Just looking at the lower section, it was clear that there were graves there at one point.  There were several rectangular depressions signifying ground disturbances.  And they were arranged in rows which seems very graveyard-like.  The crew had used some ground penetrating radar earlier, but there was too much ground vegetation to get a clear reading, so we had to dig test pits.

The first one we dug was up near the road where the photo had shown headstones. We got down about 10 inches and hit our first artifact!  A piece of bone!  But it was cut and small, so it was from an animal.  But we kept digging and here's an inventory of all the cool stuff we found

• many, many pieces of plates and bowls
• lots of animal bone
• a shoe
• the heel of a show
• lots of glass bits
• a bottle
• bricks
• a small, ceramic figurine
• a bucket handle (found by yours truly!)
• and a couple rusty cans

We think that the plates and bowls could have held offerings at one point, as could the glass bottle.  All the artifacts were pretty jumbled in the pit suggesting that the ground had been disturbed after they were placed there.  That and the absence of a body most likely means that the person who was in that grave was reburied somewhere else.  

We dug two more test pits in other spots, but neither yielded human bones or even any more artifacts.

It's amazing how much you can tell just from the dirt!  The soil in this area is very clay-ey and a grey-green color.  but the soil where we were finding the artifacts was more like farm dirt and a dark brown.  That made it a lot easier to tell where the graves were and when we had reached the bottom.

I also found a worm during my turn in the pit.  I picked him up and flung him aside.  The lead archaeologist was pretty impressed  that I didn't get squeamish :) 

Even though we weren't in a mine, this song was playing in my head all day.

Oahe Downstream

My second state park adventure.  Pro tip: remember to put sunscreen on your back.  I'm going to have one strange tan line this summer.

No shit, Sherlock :)

Battle Mountain

My first official business trip was to shadow (and take a bajillion notes) at at 106 consultation meeting.  106 refers to a section of the National Historic Preservation Act that mandates a review process for any federal action involving a historic structure.  Battle Mountain Sanitarium was the subject of this review.

BMS is a veteran's hospital in Hot Springs, SD.  Aside from being GORGEOUS, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark the day before the hearing I was at.  The VA is proposing to pull their services from BMS -- essentially abandoning it which will inevitably lead to deterioration.  The legal jargon is "adverse effect" which need to be mitigated under 106.

Usually the public isn't invited to these meetings until later in the process, but this meeting was open to everyone.  A bunch of self-proclaimed "angry vets" came and had no intention of listening to anything the VA reps had to say.  The VA is arguing that consolidating services to Rapid City will help them better serve veterans.  All the veterans hear is that they'll have to travel farther to get care.

Another problem is that BMS was built in 1903.  To put that into perspective, it served veterans of the Civil War.  That means the building doesn't currently comply with ADA standards and modern treatment modalities.  The VA think that because BMS is a landmark and listed on the National Register, that it can't be touched or rehabbed or modified.  Not true.  The best way to preserve a historic building is to use it and if you understand historic preservation legislation, you know that there are avenues to approve rehabilitations and even get funding for it.

Overall, the meeting was just a bunch of yelling and nothing really was accomplished despite the efforts of the moderator.  That was a little frustrating since getting all the decision-makers in a room together doesn't happen very often.  The good thing was I got to meet all the decision-makers and do some networking.

On the drive, no one in the car talked at all.  And then I Will Always Love You came on the radio and I could barely control the giggles :)