Drive Out
| As is becoming a tradition, after school ended, we packed up the ChickMobile and hit the road for fun and adventure. This time, with a working clutch, we had a little more fun and a little less adventure. |
 |
| The Badlands of South Dakota. As is the case with pretty much any natural formation, "Tens of thousands of years ago, the last ice glaciers retreated and left the slate on which erosion has crafted this natural wonder." All of my pictures of the badlands look computer generated. |
 |
 |
Mount Rushmore. Blasted out of pure granite, this man made wonder serves as a testamate to human engineering and our ability to blow the crap out of stuff. |
| Crazy Horse -- Monument in the Making. What I didn't realize was that this monument has been in the making for about 50 years, and as you can barley see under the model's arm, they've only got his face blasted. It's absolutely huge, and there will be a Native American university and historical museum among other things at the bottom. Why not spend a few years and build those useful things first? Don't know. |  |
| The Mormon Temple. They were kicked out of Illinois, so they walked west. When they got to the middle of absolutely nowhere, Brigam Young (depicted in the gold statue that looks like Mary) struck his staff to the ground and said something to the effect of, "This place shall be our new home." At which point everyone else asked, "Why do you want to stop here, exactly?" It took them something like 40 years to build this temple by hand. I learned that 400 years after his death, Jesus came to North America. So by the time Columbus landed, why did any of the natives need converting? |
 |
| A random mountain out in the middle of the Nevada desert. |
 |
| From my perspective, the only good thing about cities in Nevada is that you can get good food really cheap. The old man and I worked craps tables and sharked the poker players. For a while there I was wondering if I should continue on and actually work this summer. Then the mob found out I was under 21 and we were out a there as fast as our four cylinder could take us. |
 |