SMILE !

SUPERMAN!

Even though Superman was born on the planet Krypton, Metropolis

is considered his hometown. Today I visited Superman's hometown.

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This is Metropolis (Illinois).

Who could resist this cheesy photograph?
Everything in the town is Superman.

And, the town has the biggest Superman statue anywhere!

ST LOUIS, MISSOURI - GATEWAY TO THE WEST

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St. Louis Arch

Note the little black speck in the water.

It's a hat from a statue of Lewis and Clark.

This is how the statue looked when I went

to the dedication of it in Sept. of 2006.

The river is high now and everything is under water.

(Maybe it shouldn't have been placed so close to the river's edge??)

IOWA and KANSAS

I have always relied on maps. Paper maps with pretty little colored lines indicating roads and highways. Being that my rental car came with a navigation device, I decided to use it. Today it instructed me to drive into the Missouri River. While I am certainly not the brightest bulb, I did have sense enough not to do it. I think I will stick with my old fashioned paper maps!

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My car is the little yellow triangle floating in the Missouri River. SERGEANT FLOYD MONUMENT
Sioux City, Iowa

Charles Floyd (1782 – August 20, 1804) was a United States explorer in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. While exploring the Louisiana Purchase with Lewis and Clark, he took ill at the end of July 1804. A funeral was held and Floyd was buried on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River in Sioux City, Iowa. The expedition named the location Floyd's Bluff in his honor. The Sergeant Floyd Monument was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1960.

This is a beautiful memorial and the final resting place

for Sergeant Floyd. It is the spot where he died. TOPEKA, KANSAS

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered. This landmark decision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and social policy. The case is about a little girl whose parents sued so that she could attend an all-white school in her neighborhood. This National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas, is an old school building that is now owned by the National Park Service.

We conclude that in the field of public education

the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place.

Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

~~From the opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren in

the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

BADLANDS and CORN PALACE (South Dakota)

THE BADLANDS OF SOUTH DAKOTA

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South Dakotans aren't exactly friendly to animal-righters!

(Try getting a vegetarian meal in this state!)

This is a place called Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.

The building is made entirely of corn.

Corn is the theme of the town.

Those murals are all made of corn cobs.

This part is made of the corn husk.

Corn cobs.

More corn.

Even the street signs have corn on them!

MT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL and CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL

“…the fundamental purpose of said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to convey the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” August 25, 1916.

This National Memorial needs no explanation.

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George, Tom, Teddy, Abe & Julie!

This is how Mt Rushmore looked when I took this

photo in May of 2006.

This is how it looks today.

It is undergoing some kind to construction to put
some kind of 3D laser thing on it.

It's a little odd to see a guy on Georgie's nose!
I took 5 photos of Mt Rushmore and 37,000 photos of the
mountain goats in the area. They are beautiful.

They just hang out and rest on the rocks.

He was smiling at me!

And, this little varmint was running all over.

A nice robin with his lunch.

CRAZY HORSE MEMORIAL

Construction began on the Crazy Horse Memorial 36 years ago, and it is still a work in progress. It is world's largest mountain carving, located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski accepted the invitation of Native Americans to carve a mountain memorial to their culture, he determined that it would be a humanitarian project. He wanted Crazy Horse to be much more than just a colossal mountain carving. He directed that the Memorial also would tell present and future generations the story of Native Americans by displaying outstanding examples of Indian culture and heritage.

Only Crazy Horse's face has been completed. His

horse is still being carved.

This is the sculptor's model of the finished memorial.

And, this is how it will look when it is finally completed.