Day 9 - Rapid City, SD to Dickenson, ND

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Today we have a very special treat! My lovely wife Kate will be guest blogging today! Day 9 will be from her perspective.

Hi all! Looking forward to sharing my point of view...

We packed up, fueled up, had one last coffee from Pure Bean (be sure to stop there if you are in the area) and headed out from Rapid City in the morning.  The agenda for the day was relatively light as the main goal was to get from Rapid City, SD to Dickinson, ND.  We had a brief stretch on the interstate before popping off to spend the remainder of the day on 2-lane roads.  

Alan mentioned my perspective, here is what I saw most of the day...

We spent the majority of the morning driving through 150 miles of prairies and farm land.  There were some really beautiful areas but as you can see in the picture above there wasn't really a shoulder so we didn't have the opportunity to stop and take pictures.

Our first stop of the day was to mark off Alan's 49th state and my 47th state...

When we originally planned this trip we hadn't planned on visiting North Dakota.  However, when we saw how close we were going to be we figured we should make sure to spend some time here since who knows when we will be back this way again.  

An added bonus (and something kistchy to entice us to North Dakota) was the Enchanted Highway. It is a collection of the world's largest scrap metal sculptures along a 32-mile stretch of two-lane highway.  

Our first stop on the Enchanted Highway was at the gift shop to pick-up some postcards and learn about the sculptures.  There was a nice man working behind the counter and we quickly realized it was the artist himself, Gary Greff...

Gary let us know that he is in the process of creating the next sculpture which will be a knight with a sword and dragon.  He sent us down the road so we could see it in process and encouraged us to keep up with the progress via Facebook.

Those are the arms of the knight sticking up in the air.

We were then on our way to check out the actual Enchanted Highway.  Alan as in the lead and after a few miles I noticed Alan bouncing up and down on his motorcycle as we crested a hill...I quickly saw why...our first stop...

The Tin Family - the first sculpture from 1991

A few miles down the road...Teddy Rides Again (1993)

After a quick photo op we were off to the next sculpture which warranted another squeal of excitement from me... Pheasants on the Prairie (1996)

Look closely in the middle and you'll see Alan's motorcycle to get an idea of the size of these things!

Another few miles down the road and we came across the sculpture Fisherman's Dream (2006)

This one was HUGE!  If you look closely in the photo you will see Alan in front of the skinny trout.  There was a ton of detail and each of those were individual sculptures.

Another few miles down the road and we came to what was probably our favorite...Grasshoppers in the Field (1999)

If you zoom in you will see that I am standing under the middle of this guy.

The last sculpture we were able to get a photo of was the Deer Crossing (2002)

There is one last sculpture titled Geese in Flight (2001) which is actually in the Guinness Book of Worlds Records as the largest scrap metal sculpture but there is apparently a land dispute with the road leading to the parking area so we weren't able to get up close.

Definitely worth a drive if you are in this part of the country!  After we finished driving the Enchanted Highway we took a quick drive to Dickinson, ND where we are staying the next few nights.

Today's miles - 265

Total miles - 2179