Squirrel Stuff I Own: Squirrel Tote Bag

My most recent squirrel acquisition happens to be an awesome tote bag, lovingly purchased for me by my sister-in-law.

I was quite excited to receive this, as I don't actually have a good tote bag; I accidentally put my favorite one in storage when we moved out of our apartment. I think this one might become my new favorite, though. It's a really nice size and has an interior pocket for things like money. I told Brandon that I was going to bring this on our honeymoon and he seemed to think that was a good idea.

Isn't it cool how people sometimes randomly buy you squirrel stuff?

Squirrel Stuff I Own: Squirrel Coaster

This particular squirrel item has been in my possession since early July and somehow I keep forgetting to exhibit it here on my blog.

This squirrel coaster was purchased for me by my in-laws while I was visiting my hometown and taking that little trip to San Francisco. They found it at a little arts and crafts fair and decided to buy it for me. I have mentioned that all my nieces (well, the ones who are sentient) are also obsessed with squirrels now, and it's been spreading to the adults as well! They tell me when they see squirrels in the yard or if they see one on their commute. It's funny.

It's also quite fitting that they are the ones to purchase this for me.

Squirrel Stuff I Own: Ground Squirrel Shot Glass

Yes, everyone's favorite series, Squirrel Stuff I Own, is back! Turns out I've acquired two new squirrel-related objects since we moved away from New York City, and I'm now going to share them with you!

The first is the most recent acquisition in my collection, lovingly purchased for me by my husband, B. It's a prairie dog shot glass!

Yes, that's a little plastic prairie dog standing upright in the shot glass! I think B was trying to purchase it on the sly, but you can't hide squirrel stuff from me, and he should know better than to try. I accosted him in Wall Drug and demanded to see what he was carrying with him. My eyes lit up when I saw what he had bought for me. Better than flowers! What a perfect husband.

Of course, I'll never use it for its intended purpose because I don't think I've had a shot of liquor since... 2005?

South Dakota: Crazy Horse Memorial

On our last day in South Dakota, B took me to the Crazy Horse Memorial.

The Crazy Horse Memorial and I go way back. See, my grandparents subscribe to Country Magazine ("for those who live in or long for the country") and I spent many long hours reading through the back issues of Country Magazine stacked on their coffee table during our visits. I love Country Magazine, by the way, and frequently contemplate getting a subscription. B doesn't know that about me.

But I digress. Country Magazine for a long time seemed to have Crazy Horse updates every other issue. Or maybe I was just reading the same issue over and over again, but I remember reading about how the face was soon to be completed and then reading about it later when it was completed and that was very exciting to me. I may have even tried to send them money at one point.

This is the Crazy Horse Memorial today.

As you can see, while the face is complete, the rest of it is far from complete. Carving was started on it in 1948, and was mostly a one man operation for many years. These days carving and blasting happens every day and there is an actual crew of guys who work on it. People are always grumpy about how little progress seems to be made on the carving, but to put it in perspective the four heads from Mount Rushmore would fit in the space behind Crazy Horse's head. So yeah, this shit is big.

This is what it will look like when completed.

I'm hopeful that the next time I visit they will have finished carving the horse's head, and maybe it will even be complete in my lifetime, although I'm not counting on that.

So the Crazy Horse Memorial is not just a giant mass of rock. They've created a cultural center around it dedicated to all Native Americans. They have beautiful crafts and old photos and lots of information about the different tribes in the state. They also have a large collection of beads, and I have a certain friend who I HOPE reads this blog, although I don't think she does, but she knows that beads have a special meaning for her and that's why I'm mentioning them.

There was also a large gate outside the compound which had images of wildlife in each panel. They even had a set of flying squirrels (in my opinion, the creepiest of squirrels).

This concludes my series on South Dakota. Are you excited? I kind of am. I'm ready to talk about something else. Like, you know, squirrels. In fact, I have two squirrel-themed posts coming up in the next two days so check back soon for your fix, all you rodent-lovers out there!

South Dakota: Deadwood

On one of our last days in South Dakota we went to Deadwood, a town infamous for its brothels and bars and famous as the death site of Wild Bill. In fact, I think there was an HBO series loosely-based on this place. It's quite small now, but in its heyday had a population of about 5,000. For comparison, that's even more people than are in my small hometown!

We took a tour of a beautiful mansion that had been built in the town around 1880. All of the furniture is original to the house, and they restored the wallpaper and window treatments to as they were when it was first built. It was really interesting to see how the rich lived back at the turn of the century.

As I noted, this is were Wild Bill died, and his final resting place is in the cemetery on the hill above town. We took a little side trip to see it.

Calamity Jane, at one point apparently his girlfriend, is buried beside him, per her dying wish.

I actually don't know my history well enough to really know why they are famous, and I'm too lazy to go to Wikipedia and figure it out myself. I was always interested in pioneer history, but somehow managed to completely ignore the cowboys and Indians sort of history that often excites others.

South Dakota: Squirrels!

Yay, finally we've come to the South Dakota post about squirrels! But first, I do have to give you this photo, a lovely picture of a bison. Yes, we saw many bison on our trip to South Dakota. I even ate some bison. And while they may be tasty, they sure are big, ugly creatures. This guys was right on the side of the road somewhere in Custer State Park.

The other major animal component of our trip, as I mentioned a few days ago, was the prairie dog. If you are reading this and you do not know that a prairie dog is actually a type of squirrel, well, then you obviously haven't had the good fortune to hear me read out loud from my book of squirrel facts. And I feel sorry for you.

These little ground squirrels were featured back in my post about the Badlands, and we saw a ton of them again at Custer State Park. These guys weren't nearly as friendly as the ones we met before (probably in large part because we did not approach them with food), but they were still adorable. This little guy even struck a pose for me!

Next, we drove on the Needles Highway and stopped at a few viewpoints. At one in particular I wandered off from the group and ran into this delighful little chipmunk, who didn't really want me to take his picture. I had to scamper up some rocks to catch him, and this picture is as close as I got.

Can you see him in there? He's just a little brown speck. Oh, okay, I'll enlarge the little guy and post him here again. I can always use an excuse for an extra squirrel picture on my blog.

Simply adorable! I've always said, if I were going to be a squirrel I would probably be a ground squirrel. (Yes, chipmunks are ground squirrels. Yes, I learned this from my squirrel fact book. No, you can't borrow it, but maybe you should go read the squirrel article on Wikipedia or something if you're confused by this ground squirrel thing.)

South Dakota: Mount Rushmore

So, Mount Rushmore. I had never been there before, and frankly, I thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it actually was!

I'm not posting any pictures of the actual carvings because seriously people, we've all seen it before and it looks just like it does in the pictures. Rather, I present to you a gallery of other interesting things I saw at Mount Rushmore.

1. A soda machine in the guise of Mount Rushmore. What in the world? Do all national parks and monuments have their soda machines decked out in the local sights? For some reason this struck me as odd, and hilarious. Pretty sure my in-laws thought I was weird for taking this picture, though.

2. A sign of anti-rodentism. Well, I know it's for the good of the chipmunk that we don't feed them, but one of my fondest childhood memories was of befriending a chipmunk at Mount Rainier and feeding it peanuts out of our hands all week. And now kids these days can't even look at a chipmunk without being arrested for attempted feeding. It's sad, really.

3. Mount Rushmore being whored out in a vintage advertisement. Note the advertisement is for Bromo-Seltzer, which I'm told was a popular hangover cure back in the day, likely because it contained some nice sedatives. Yes, those sedatives are now illegal, and yes, I'm sad about it.

South Dakota: Mammoth Site

Our third day in South Dakota we toured The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. I had never heard of this before, but it turned out to be very cool. About 26,000 years ago this site was a giant sinkhole, filled with water. Apparently mammoths would slide in while attempting to get water or eat the nice greens on the edge of the hole and would be unable to climb out. Over many years they were all buried in the mud and muck at the bottom of the hole, and preserved for thousands of years.

The site is a working paleontological dig site, and we even saw workers scraping away with their trowels while we were there. They've left everything in situ, and are slowly working their way down.

One of the coolest things was the mammoth footprints they've found in the upper layers from when the sinkhole became a giant mudhole and mammoths stopped becoming stuck there and simply walked right over it.

See? Can you see the footprints? They've found several relatively complete skeletons, some of which are still in situ.

Funny thing, they have not yet found evidence of a female mammoth's skeleton at the site. Now, obviously you have to find certain parts of the skeleton to determine the sex of the mammoth, so it's highly likely that there are female mammoths there, they just can't be identified as such.

It was a very cool stop, and we really liked the little town of Hot Springs as well. I definitely recommend it to anyone else traveling through South Dakota.

South Dakota: Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

Some of you may already know that both B and I are interested in the history of the Cold War and the Space Race. So we were both excited to discover that South Dakota has opened up some nuclear missile silos for public viewing.

Unfortunately we discovered this too late and were unable to sign up for one of the guided tours down in one of the control centers for these nuclear missiles, but we did get to do our own cell phone tour of the actual missile silo. It's out in the middle of the prairie, just surrounded by a little chain-link fence.

Apparently these sites are all over South Dakota and were a major part of our country's defensive power in the years after World War II. At this particular site, I think it's called D-09, they've removed the nuclear warhead from the missile, but left the actual missile in place in the silo.

I thought that was pretty cool. Of course, I had always pictured these missiles as much larger, but that may be from watching Star Trek: First Contact too many times. I don't think the kids were too interested in this particular stop on our trip, but B and I were sure excited. We're hoping to get reservations for the guided tour next time, because that's how we roll.

South Dakota: Badlands

Our second day in South Dakota we drove through the Badlands. There were some pretty spectacular sites there, and I was surprised at how beautiful such an unfriendly landscape could be.

It was incredibly dry there, and you could see that on the ground which was cracked from drying so quickly.

Yet somehow there was quite a bit of wildlife that lived there, bison, birds, snakes, and goats. But of course it wouldn't be a real vacation for me unless we saw some ground squirrels.

And oh boy did we see ground squirrels! We drove on a horrible gravel road to get to this little prairie dog town, but we were rewarded when we got there and discovered that they were incredibly friendly little rodents.

Well, they were friendly because they knew that we had food. Granola bars, actually. B and I helped the nieces to feed them, and they screamed with happiness when the little guys came out of their burrows to feast on granola bar. Well, I screamed with happiness too.

Only later did we find out that it was illegal to feed the prairie dogs. Oops.