Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
– straighten image
In the late 80s, on our way home from a western vacation, we stopped for one night in Badlands National Park. The stop included a nighttime ranger guided walk. Our 2007 trip was a daytime visit as we were camping in the Black Hills. It started out as a chilly blustery day, but, fortunately the weather improved as the day went on. The badlands is a fascinating landscape of “sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States1.”
Walk down Main Street of this 1880 town and explore more than 30 buildings authentically furnished with thousands of relics. Enjoy the rolling terrain of a sprawling homestead and envision life on the prairie. While at the 1880 town, you can also view memorabilia from the late Casey Tibbs, a champion rodeo bronc rider, and many props that were used in filming the movie “Dances with Wolves.”
Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
– straighten image
One of our first stops on our 2007 trip, after visiting family in Nebraska, was the Black Hills of South Dakota. While there, we visited Mount Rushmore national Monument.
We had stopped at Mount Rushmore once in the late 80s. We were on our way home from vacationing in Wyoming and Idaho and our visit to Rushmore was a hurried afterthought.
This trip, we took our time and got the full benefit of the visit. Mount Rushmore is worth seeing.
Ant Farm Cadillac car art, Route 66, Amarillo, Texas. 2006
Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, U.S. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm, and it consists of what were (when originally installed during 1974) either older running used or junk Cadillac automobiles, representing a number of evolutions of the car line (most notably the birth and death of the defining feature of early Cadillacs; the tail fin) from 1949 to 1963, half-buried nose-first in the ground, at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.
Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
– straighten image
Our first extended stay in the Black Hills was during the summer of 2007. Because of western wildfires, we had delayed our trip out west until late August in the hopes that the fires would diminish during our travels into September. Unfortunately, the air was smoky for much of our time in South Dakota.
Custer State Parke has more large wildlife than most state parks and many federal parks. While buffalo are the most prominent, elk, mule deer, white tailed deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, and mountain lions also inhabit the park. There is also a large population of feral burros1 (asses2). The burros are descendants of a herd that were used to carry visitors to the top of Harney Peak. When the rides were discontinued years ago, the burros were released into the park. They are known as “Begging Burros” for their propensity in getting food from park visitors.
1. burro: (noun) 1. The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. In the western United States, a small donkey is sometimes called a ”burro” (from the Spanish word for the animal).
2. ass: (noun) 1. A hoofed mammal of the horse family with a braying call, typically smaller than a horse and with longer ears
Interior of the box at Ford’s Theatre where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Washington, D.C.
Highsmith, Carol M, photographer. Interior of the box at Ford’s Theatre where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, Washington, D.C., 2007. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010630766/. (Accessed March 01, 2017.)
Call Number: LC-DIG-highsm- 04782 (ONLINE) [P&P]
Notes:
After Booth shot Lincoln he lept on the stage from Lincoln’s box, breaking his leg. As he ran from the stage, some heard Booth shout “sic semper tyrannus,” which is Latin for “thus always to tyrants.”
Title, date, and subjects provided by the photographer.
Credit line: Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift and purchase; Carol M. Highsmith; 2009; (DLC/PP-2010:031).
Forms part of: Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
Highsmith, a distinguished and richly published American photographer, has donated her work to the Library of Congress since 1992. Starting in 2002, Highsmith provided scans or photographs she shot digitally with new donations to allow rapid online access throughout the world. Her generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for copyright free access also makes this Archive a very special visual resource
Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
fade correction,
color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
selected spot and/or scratch removal
cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
Just over a quarter of Nebraska is mixed grass prairie on grass-stabilized sand dunes, referred to locally as the sandhills. It is the largest area of sand dunes in the western hemisphere.
In 2007, we visited a relative’s ranch in the sandhills, a place of fond memories for me. The accompanying video was produced in 2011 from pictures taken during that visit.
The Nebraska Sandhills – Lincoln City Library: “The Nebraska Sandhills are the largest area of sand dunes in the western hemisphere. Over 50,000 square kilometers, or close to 20,000 square miles in extent (not counting some outliers), the Sandhills are fragile grasslands that are wild, sparsely settled, desolate, and beautiful in unexpected ways.”
