Deadwood, South Dakota

Another stop on our epic road trip last fall was Deadwood. Now if you watched the HBO series Deadwood and were expecting anything remotely similar to that you would be in for a big surprise! Not a bad surprise, but it's not the wild wild west anymore.

We decided to take a bus tour up to the Mount Moriah Cemetery where Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are buried.

The cemetery was interesting but one of the best things in the tour was the amazing view from the hilltop.

I think Deadwood is a fun place to spend an afternoon as a quick pitstop from I-90 on the way through to the Black Hills but I don't think I'd put it top on my list of things to go out of the way to see.

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I'm linking this D is for Deadwood post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Be sure to head on over and check out other people's D posts.

Château de Franchimont

Another thing on my 101 List is "visit a castle." I'm not sure if I should count this because it's more the REMAINS of a castle!

Sitting on the end of a small hill overlooking a small village in Belgium, Château de Franchimont (Franchimont Castle) is thought to be built in the 11th century. Over the centuries it was expanded several times but it wasn't until the 16th century that they built the outer wall and artillery tower. These days there's not too much left of the tower but the remaining bits are where the ticket office is and a small exhibit on how it grew over the years.

This is part of the rather steep road leading up to the original entry to the castle.

Once you walk through the arch you can see the courtyard and some of the remains of the castle.

Back to the outside again. I loved the plant life on the walls!

Here you can see one of the lovely views of the village below.

If you do get the opportunity to go, visitors information can be found on the Château de Franchimont website (in French, but Google Translate does a passable job of translating the important bits). I highly recommend paying the extra €1.50 for the audiotour. It's interesting to wander around in the ruins but it's even more interesting if you know a little more about it!

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I'm linking this C is for Castle/Château post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Go have a gander over there are find out what other fun C's people wrote about!

Badlands National Park

Last fall we took a massive road trip from Utah to Minnesota. Happily, there are a ton of things to do and see along the way. Badlands National Park was on our list of MUST SEES for that trip, and it didn't disappoint.

When we were there the weather wasn't fantastic (read as: REALLY REALLY COLD AND DREARY), so we mainly drove through and stopped at the interest points along the way to take pictures. According to the park website, there are several hiking trails and I think if the weather had been better it would've been lovely to do a couple of those.

The scenery was amazing and I thought it was really interesting to see all of the exposed layers in all of their different colors. A bit like a history map through the ages.

We learned a few interesting tidbits from reading the info-boards along the way. The grasslands used to look black, covered with enormous herds of buffalo. These days, the black patches you see in the grasslands are the results of controlled burns. Early settlers to the area didn't think the native grasses to be very "pretty" and planted a lot of non-native species which threaten to take over the native ones. The park does controlled burns in an effort to get rid of some of the invading species. The native species are more "fireproof," meaning their root systems go a lot deeper and they can survive the grass fires better than the invaders.

The visitors guide (links to the site to download a PDF guide) for the park suggests you only need an hour to drive through but if you only budget an hour you won't have time to stop and get out. It took us closer to 3 hours to drive through and that was with us not staying out of the car for extended periods of time (generally 5-10 minutes at each pull off through the park).

The entry fee was $15 for our car and worth every penny if you ask me. You can check out the park opening hours and other "things to know" here on the Plan Your Visit link to the park.

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I'm linking this B is for Badlands post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Go have a snoop around over there are find out what other fun B's people wrote about!

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In other exciting news, I get to check another thing off of my 101 list! Visit the Badlands is DONE!

Monkeys Monkeys Everywhere!

Some might say that Disneyland is the "happiest place on earth" and while I do find it a wonderfully fun place to visit I can tell you it's not the happiest place on earth. I discovered a few weeks ago that the happiest place on earth is actually the Apenheul. The primate zoo where monkeys roam free and there are teeny monkey babies everywhere.

There was a brand new baby gorilla born the night before we went so that was pretty exciting too!

The gorillas live on an island in the middle of the park and there is a "feeding show" every few hours where they'll come for treats like apples and cucumbers. We were really lucky because ALL of them showed up for our show and the hosts said that doesn't always happen. I learned a couple of interesting things during the show. Gorillas can't swim and they have round potbellies because their intestinal track is larger and set up slightly differently than in humans.

This little orangutan was so funny. He kept hiding under his blanket and then popping out and jumping and waving... then crawled back under to hide for another minute before popping out again. Orangutan peek-a-boo!

If you're ever in Apeldoorn, take the day and go to the Apenheul! They're open from March 30 to October 31st and entry is €18,50 for adults (which I think is plenty but we did have discount cards and now that I've been I would still recommend it even if you have to pay full price).

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Be sure to swing byUnknown Mami for more Sundays in My City.