Episode LXXXV: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2010 means my fifth annual Thanksgiving Road Trip. Seeing as how this should be my last such trip, I am reflecting on where Thanksgiving has taken me in the past: first it was Oklahoma, to see the world's largest praying hand sculpture, then Dallas, Texas the second year. Year three I adopted two co-pilots (Rafael & father) and went to Branson, Missouri for the most Christmas-y Thanksgiving ever. Year four was a trip down to Nahleans for some warmth, and this year we made up for that by going to bitterly-cold Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

We left Wednesday for Omaha, where we encountered our first bison sculpture:


This turned out to be a theme of the trip, encountering homages to bison everywhere we went.



It was as if the bison was the official state animal of Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming (actually it is the state animal of Wyoming, which is the only state where we came across live bison- in the middle of a highway no less! [real bison not pictured])


(Below: yes it's bison! It is actually the bladder of a bison, used by natives as a drinking vessel. Turns out the ureter of a bladder makes an excellent drinking straw!)


We also came across some bighorn sheep, which were even more exciting to me (and yes, again, some of them were in the middle of the road...)


Thursday was Thanksgiving. That meant just about every tourist attraction was closed. But not Mount Rushmore! I got to spend Thanksgiving evening with some American Presidents.


Earlier in the day we had stopped at Rapid City, where there were statues of all of the former Presidents on various street corners throughout the city. Including my favorite President ever, Calvin Coolidge:


And the fellow who helped me achieve the "national radio spotlight," Old Tippecanoe himself:


Saturday we stopped at the only archaeological mammoth site in the nation in which the bones are left intact, where they were discovered, for tourists to see. It was quite a neat experience.


There are plenty of other places to mention: a couple of state capitols, a couple of beautiful National Parks, a couple of Native American sites, a fort, an indoor hot springs, etc. And there are plenty of other stories to be told. Perhaps they will be told another time. For now, give thanks folks, and I will leave you with a picture of the world's largest ball of stamps, around five feet in diameter and 600 pounds, in Boys Town, NE.