Since I haven't been able to find enough time for the blog these days but do like to share news and updates, Twitter's 140-character mini-posts are a great solution.
My "tweets" will be a mix of Sacred Destinations updates and features, news related to religious travel and art, and occasional randomness. I promise not to bore you with what I had for lunch.
While neglecting this blog over the past few months (sorry about that), I've been hard at work converting my old website to a snazzier new version. It looks similar to the old one, but operates a bit more dynamically using a database.
It's a long project, since I have over 1,200 articles and a couple hundred cities to convert! I'm also taking the opportunity to update and improve many of the articles along the way, and occasionally pausing to add some new ones, so it may be a couple more months before I'm done.
But the new database is already enabling new features, including a fun one I added today. It's nothing too fancy, but it displays a random selection of sacred sites from around the world every time you refresh your browser - I recommend it for aimless surfing on your lunch hour. You can take it for a spin here:
Hope you like it! There will be more new features to come, and we're planning some great trips for 2010 that will be documented here as well. Now I'd better get back to work...
We loved Wyoming as much as we knew we would. Leaving South Dakota around 9:30am Sunday morning, we were soon over the border and on our way to Devils Tower National Monument.
This spectacular rock formation had a starring role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and it is also a sacred site for Native Americans of the area.
There are lots of interesting legends about how it was formed, but most of them boil down to this: a giant bear came after some people, who climbed up on a large rock and prayed to the Great Spirit to help them. The Great Spirit answered, making the rock grow high into the sky. As it grew, the angry bear scratched down the side, making the vertical markings.
The geological explanation is that it is made of hardened magma, which formed over a mile under the earth's surface 50 million years ago. The softer rock around it gradually eroded away, leaving the strange-looking tower extending above the plains.
We spent a very pleasant hour or so walking the paved path through the pine forest around the base of the rock. The formation looks different from every side and we enjoyed spotting rock climbers way up there and watching kids climbing around on the huge piles of rubble at the base.
Climbers
View from the woods
Path
Prayer flag
When we left Devils Tower, modern technology failed us. Granted, it was mostly human error - I accidentally chose Buffalo, SD instead of Buffalo, WY from the list in our sat-nav - but our trust in it resulted in us driving over an hour in the wrong direction, back to South Dakota! Oops. It was only when we began seeing signs for the state border that we realized my mistake. At least the scenery was pretty and I have a husband with a sense of humor!
After 3 more hours of driving, we arrived in the small town of Buffalo around 7:30pm. Buffalo was fairly significant in the Old West, but there isn't much to see there now. However, I had booked us in a historic hotel that I was pretty excited about, and it did turn out to be very fun.
It's called the Occidental Hotel and it was originally built in 1880. Past guests reportedly include Teddy Roosevelt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Buffalo Bill Cody and Calamity Jane.
I especially loved the lobby, where wonderful old music added to the ambiance. Click to listen!
We stayed in the Teddy Roosevelt Room, which is not necessarily the one he stayed in (they don't know which one that was) but is themed with some old portraits of him.
Some of the furniture is original from the 19th-century hotel (including our wooden bed) and others are antiques from the same period. It was so much fun, like sleeping in a museum.
We had dinner in the hotel restaurant (The Virginian), where we got a great table in a little nook next to the window. The food was very good but not quite worth the high price.
Restaurant view from our nook
My dinner: pork chops with apples, mashed sweet potatoes (some of the best I've ever had) and green beans with too much pepper.
Almost forgot to take a picture of dessert! We shared key lime pie and something else that I can't remember - some kind of cheesecake, I believe.
Just outside the door of our room was one of those great hotel libraries, where people leave books for others to read. I picked up a copy of Anna Karenina and didn't get too far into its 800+ pages in one night, but I'm continuing it now with my own copy at home. We slept well in our creaky bed (the mattress was modern!) and looked forward to Yellowstone the next day.
In May, David and I took a three-week road trip from our home in Portland to Minnesota, to visit some of my relatives and tour the Great American West along the way. This post is part of a series on the highlights of our trip.
Downtown St. Paul
We didn't do a whole lot of sightseeing in Minnesota since we were mainly there to visit with Grandma and other family, but we did find time to see some historic places in St. Paul and the biggest mall in the country.
The Twin Cities
St. Paul (pop. 287,000) and Minneapolis (pop. 377,000) are right next to each other and known as the Twin Cities. According to Wikipedia, there has been a fierce rivalry between the two since the beginning with regard to business, architecture and sports. The baseball team had to be named the Minnesota Twins (rather than Minneapolis or St. Paul Somethings) in order to help everyone get along.
In general, St. Paul is the more historic of the two cities and Minneapolis is more modern and cosmopolitan. We didn't get to see much of Minneapolis - only glimpses from the road as we drove over there to visit family - but it looked like a nice city. Since Grandma lives in the heart of St. Paul, we spent a few hours seeing the sights the day after we arrived. Below are the highlights.
St. Paul
Just a few blocks from Grandma's house is the Minnesota State Capitol, built in 1907. We didn't go inside, but I hear the lobby is beautiful.
The Minnesota History Center opened in 1992 near the Capitol. It was an interesting museum showcasing Minnesota's 100 greatest contributions to the world plus other local artifacts.
The infamous Spam was introduced by Hormel Foods of Minnesota in 1937. It is short for "spiced ham" and was the first canned meat product that didn't require refrigeration. It therefore became a major part of the diet of WWII soldiers.
Socializing in the dining car of a North Coast Limited train, 1962.
Old mail coach
Snowmobile made in 1962
Up the hill from the History Center is the Cathedral of St. Paul, a grand Catholic church built from 1907 to 1958.
White Castle
David was very excited to go to White Castle, as we don't have them out here in Oregon. They do sell the frozen burgers in grocery stores, though, which he likes a lot. Conveniently, there is a White Castle close to Grandma's house, so we stopped by on our way back after sightseeing.
We ordered a selection of items to try, including a couple small cheeseburgers, fries, a pulled pork sandwich, and "chicken rings." We took our order to go.
I was not impressed. Most of it barely qualified as food, with the pulled pork sandwich being the only edible exception. David liked it all, but said the fresh burgers weren't really any better than the frozen versions he can buy at home.
The Mall of America
The following day, we visited the Mall of America in Bloomington (a suburb of Minneapolis). It's the largest mall in the United States. Naturally, it was my favorite place to visit when I stayed with Grandma as a kid! I was interested to see what had changed, and David was pretty excited to check it out too. We spent a few hours walking the entire thing and had a great time.
The mall has four floors, including a theater. It is clean, modern and well laid out - it has a simple square plan anchored by major department stores at the four corners. In the center is an indoor amusement park with roller coasters and other rides. In the basement level there is a huge walk-through aquarium complete with sharks! And of course the food court was far better than most. We were thrilled to find it included a Chipotle, one of our favorite restaurants back home - we had delicious burritos for lunch. Later we made a pit stop at Caribou Coffee, a great local chain, for iced drinks.
