Three Covered Bridges – New Hampshire

I drove for another half an hour before I came to the next GPS destination – again in the middle of nowhere. I drove around where I thought this bridge might be, looking at the rivers illustrated on my GPS map, and just driving towards them. Eventually I hit pay dirt with the Rowell Bridge in West Hopkinton. This bridge was completed in 1853 and still sees a good deal of traffic – from both directions even though it is a one lane bridge. I have to admit the idea of crossing it with my car made me a bit skittish but it didn’t rock, or sway, or do anything strange, and I made it across without a fuss. However despite there being signs pointing the way to the bridge there are no parking spaces and being one lane it wasn’t particularly pedestrian friendly either. I pulled over aside the road the best I could next to what may or may not have been a primitive road to somewhere else. I walked down there a bit to get a better shot of the side of the bridge and I poked around taking photos. The locals here kept slowing their cars and staring at me like I was some sort of circus attraction. Surely, others must come to walk and photograph their bridge??

I was back in the car and heading towards the next bridge on my agenda – Waterloo Bridge in Warner New Hampshire. This one was a fun one to find! My GPS decided that half the roads in the area were imaginary and for most of the trip there it said I was floating in mid air. Again it was not at the address listed and I had to just drive circles in the area crossing over the river again and again until I got the right road. Boy was I happy when I found it! This little beauty was built in 1859-60.

I was doing well today! Why not go for a third bridge? I drove off and got onto the highway, the same highway I felt I was becoming a little too familiar with, when I noticed the RAV was thirsty. I needed to find a gas station… and as usual when you ask a GPS to find one for you it’ll inevitably lead you on a wild goose chase, which is exactly what it did. I took an exit and followed directions only to end up… nowhere. I tried the next nearest gas station and again ended up in a residential neighborhood with not even the faintest hint of a gas station. I was starting to get punchy when I tried for a third time. This time it said “main street” so I figured it was a good bet. My hunch was right — and even better the gas station was right across the street from another covered bridge! A completely accidental find! This one was attached to an old train station turned park so I wandered across the road to take a peek. It was called the Contoocook Railway Bridge and Depot. It was a big one! And boy did it take nice black and whites! And unlike the other bridges there were people around this one playing just as I was.

From here I continued to Merrimack where there was a cluster of covered bridges but it was getting late and I kept hitting closed roads and construction. Plus by this time I really needed to pee and was getting hungry so I decided three bridges are good enough for one day and I came home… stopping only once more to take a photo of my favorite paint horse farm in Temple…

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 29, 2017 3

Cascade Marsh – Sutton NH (Bonus dried up dam)

I needed to take an adventure today so badly that I was crawling out of my skin. With my health increasingly dogging me and other situations arising I haven’t had the pure and simple joy of just getting into the car and driving off into the wild blue yonder. Still, there’s no better medicine than doing just that so this morning I spent some time trying to figure out where to go.

A long time ago my brother used to live in this apartment literally in the middle of nowhere. You had to drive over two separate covered bridges and go back in time to get there. It was so deep in the woods that you could hear the cracking of a twig a mile away. He didn’t live there for long but I was always jealous. I should have called him and asked for his old address so I could drive right to these happy memories. Instead I googled, “Covered Bridges in New Hampshire” figuring there might be ten or so to chose from and my powers of deduction could figure out the rest but I’ll be damned, there are forty-two covered bridges listed in New Hampshire! Now what? I stared at a map to find a good cluster and decided I would head towards Merrimack and call it good.

My car is in the shop getting treated for post traumatic stress disorder which it got from it’s previous owner. Normally when this happens I borrow a Prius but the Prius I normally borrowed was scooting along it’s own adventure which means I was left borrowing my mother’s insanely temperamental RAV. If you’ve ever had the joy of holding a crazed husky on a leash you’ll know what driving the RAV is like – it pulls in both directions at once and whenever it feels like it. The gas is so outrageous that I pealed rubber trying to feather my way out of the driveway, and the brakes…. what brakes? Yeeeeeah…. this would be an adventure alright!

I ended up following a motorcyclist some 30 minutes with five separate turns from Jaffrey to Benton I think. At first this was fine but when he took an exit to shake me and I still followed him he seemed to get increasingly agitated. Another motorcyclist joined him for a while and it seemed as if he was both annoyed to be suddenly riding with someone else and relieved there was someone else here to witness the creepy RAV behind him. When the second motorcyclist took another exit and I was still following the first guy he literally just pulled aside the road on the highway and let me pass! Sorry dude, I wasn’t stalking you I swear! Truth be told I was hit with a sudden wave of fatigue and nearly stopped off myself for a short road-side nap but I didn’t because this motorcyclist was intriguing me. Where was he going? To the covered bridge I was trying to find?? What were the odds?! And by the time he finally pulled over I had woken up again. Another great roadside sight was what I could have sworn was a thunder bird swooping over the car. Biggest bird I have EVER seen. No idea what it was! Also almost ran over a suicidal hawk who swooped past my windshield.

I had been driving for over an hour by the time my GPS claimed I found my first destination. The funny thing about covered bridges is they don’t have addresses so asking my GPS is always one of those “let’s flip a coin!” sort of deals. I had “hints” downloaded from the internet but after driving in several circles the first bridge was nowhere to be found. So I started on my journey to see the second bridge on my list. I had five or six programmed into the GPS and it decided which ones were closest and what route made the most sense. I can’t say I agreed as I found myself driving the same road three times over but I digress!

As I was driving along I saw a “primitive” dirt road with a big poorly constructed sign reading “cemetery.” A cemetery on a road that looks like you need four wheel drive? What more could you do to entice me?! I ignored my increasingly angry GPS yelling at me and took a little detour. Wow, this road was gorgeous! Out in the middle of the woods, so quiet, a grated dirt road filled with only thousands of acres of woods dotted with big colonial farmhouses from time to time. Way to make my heart flutter!

And then I saw something interesting… a big sign reading, “Cascade Marsh.” I had yet to visit any marshes on my journey, in fact I am not entirely sure what constitutes a marsh. Is it just a fancy word for swamp? I decided to check it out. I parked the car and headed into the woods where a big gate went over a trail. I didn’t walk for very long before I came across a hidden utopia. This was so worth the detour! Hidden coyly behind the trees was what I can only guess was a popular local fishing spot right off of a dam. The view was astounding! I snapped photos, probably more than I needed for such a small area, but it gave me such peace and joy to do so. I realized when I was playing with the marbles that this would be another really awesome place to take whimsical photos with props. Suddenly I decided I needed a backpack – and props! just in case I came across another sight such as this! I stayed here for quite a while, not another soul in sight, just enjoying watching the birds – a kingfisher and a blue herring. I was so at peace here I didn’t want to leave!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

I was thoroughly rejuvenated after that little jaunt. For being summer it was a fairly brisk day and breezy which made the water ripple all over. I wanted to see where the rest of the trail would lead but the trail turned into a dense thicket of random weeds and bushes not too far from the dam. A little sad I walked back to the car to resume my search for these elusive covered bridges I had been hearing about.

As I was driving I came across a very weird sight – an old dried up dam. I pulled over and took a couple snaps as the locals wondered what was wrong with me. I found it so fascinating! There amongst a jungle of weeds was a big gully where a river once was and the cracking crumbling ruins of an old dam.

Continue the journey to find the covered bridges in the next entry…

June 29, 2017 0

Robert Frost House – Derry NH

Since I was in the area anyway I decided to go to the Robert Frost house, some eight and a half miles from Benson Park. Robert Frost is one of New England’s most famous poets. You probably remember him from The Road Not Taken, you know the one that starts, “Two paths diverged in a yellow wood…” He’s also the delightful curmudgeon who coined, “Good fences make good neighbors.” This is something considering he lived on a large acreage in the middle of nowhere. I can relate. My DNA is also composed of a lot of Hermit fragments.

The house was right off the road, super easy to find. I had heard there were trails nearby but it was getting a little late to be mucking about in the woods all by my lonesome. I am not sure if anyone lives there or not but there is a sign telling you all about it…

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

Just up the road I was thrilled to find a happy surprise – an old caboose still sitting on the track outside of a tiny recovered train station that was now being used as a trailhead. I stopped and took a few photos.

Today was also the first day I decided to actually pull over and start reading all the historical markers I had driven by a billion times but never read. This one’s aside the road in Jaffrey, pretty much in the middle of the woods. Look, I learned something!

If you enjoy my blog please consider helping me fund my lifelong dream of having an educational farm and check out my GoFundMe. Thank you! https://www.gofundme.com/help-fund-an-educational-farm

June 22, 2017 0

Benson Animal Farm [Abandoned Zoo Turned Park] Hudson NH

The weather was perfect today, sunny but not too hot, and I was getting itchy feet to go somewhere so I decided on Benson Park which was once a popular zoo that closed, I think in the 1980’s, and then rotted for a good long time before the town decided to make it into a lovely park. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I’d been promised I could play in empty zoo enclosures so I was in.

I have been to plenty of roadside zoos and I figured that’s what this would be… I figured it’d be some rotted fencing jutting out of an embankment in the woods somewhere but actually it’s smack dab in the middle of civilization and has a huge parking lot to boot. Upon entering I noticed three things: A nursing home, not affiliated but still right there, a dog park in what was probably a zoo cage at one point, and a TON of kids playing on brand new playground equipment. So this old zoo somehow became a place to house old people, dogs, and children. Seemed odd but oddly fitting…

I wandered where I pleased. Although there were trails here with names they were insanely poorly marked, and by that I mean pretty much not marked at all except for one wooded section that might make city dwellers think they’d die if they wandered off too far… That was the best though, as it was in the far corner and super quiet. The vegetation had grown so out of control it grew around and over the paths making this sort of whimsical lush green tunnel. Swamp lands abounded, as did vague signs about being on the moose path. I had a weird moment of realization that this once could have been the home of tigers and wildebeest, things that should have never lived in this part of the world, things that could easily kill. Were their ghosts still lingering?

There wasn’t much left to the old zoo but the buildings that remained were under reconstruction. I got to walk up to an idle ticket booth, an “elephant house” turned gift store, some sort of cage I am hoping the elephant didn’t live in, and another very depressing wrought iron prison used for the gorilla. Apparently they had one silver back gorilla, living in solitary isolation in a cage I would find the appropriate size for a small flock of chickens. That is where I left off and the place made me feel SAD. I could just imagine the poor beast pacing the tiny concrete floor in his own Victorian Hell. Say what you will about zoos – at least the ones these days aren’t that damn depressing!

As an added bonus I got to spend some time with some really tame Canadian geese and their awkward and ugly little goslings, almost as big as their parents but still sporting little tufts of fuzz. This was delightful surprise and made me ache to be back living on a free range farm. It reminded me what a peaceful and fulfilling experience it is to live among the animals. It has once again solidified my determination to make this a reality in the future. Sigh, someday!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 22, 2017 0

NYC – Day One

I slept in Elizabeth NJ before going into NYC. I had to take four modes of transportation to get there. From a shuttle bus I found an “air bus” (monorail) and from there I had to take the train to the subway station and the subway to wherever I was going. If you include walking that’s five ways of transportation. In fact there is one kind of person you won’t see in NYC despite all its massive diversity, and that is fat people. They don’t exist here because everyone has to walk or bike everywhere, even to the subway stations which are often up and down a bunch of stairs. Funny enough I think this little trip has changed me. Before leaving home I couldn’t even deal with malls… too many people… I hated them. Now I was in NYC with people rushing by me on all sides and I was fine with that.

I even walked through Times Square. It was a strange experience with the Jumbotron going and flashing obnoxious advertisements on every available surface it was like walking into the internet and getting attacked by rabid pop-ups. Still the people were interesting. I was hearing little nips of every language known to man and seeing all sorts of interesting personalities. Elmo and his three clones were even there. Apparently it’s in bad taste to dare people to tickle them. Not that that ever stopped me… And you know what? Poor Elmo has NO IDEA what to do when you do! Snap a photo and run. It’s the perfect grifting of a grifter…

After walking through Times Square I ended up in Central Park. Now I don’t want to sound too horrible but I honestly thought that all Central Park was was a large swath of trees in the middle of the city where people get mugged and killed at night. I had no idea it had anything else to offer. As I walked in it was as I imagined it… trees with a paved pathway and a few dark archway bridges weaving between them. I stopped to take photos of a hawk someone had spotted and moved on, eventually buying a snack and a drink, before sitting down to enjoy it. There were kids everywhere playing on swings and a guy with balloon swords he was trying to sell for three dollars a pop, basically by giving them to small children before pointing his $3 sign out to the parents who then had to make the choice of taking the balloon away from their crying child or fork over the three bucks. Such a NYC attitude.

I used their dreadful bathrooms. I don’t recommend it to anyone unless you really have to go. I wandered away after that weaving in and out of the park, passing horses with ridiculous feathers jutting out of their heads, dragging behind them swarthy little buggies. I also found a carousel ride which I may have ridden if it weren’t $2.50 a ride per person.

Eventually I found myself in the heart of the park at the Bethesda Fountain. It was surrounded by a beautiful ornate bridge where two couples were taking their wedding photos. A small pond lay beyond and sculptures and stone carvings abounded. I took some photos of each other sitting on the bridge. I was a bit worried I’d fall over so I was merely teetering on the opposite edge. You can tell in the photos as I look rather funny.

Eventually I found my way to the pond where a small Asian woman was feeding crackers to a swarm of turtles in the water. I eventually sat down beside her and watched as the turtles ate crackers and popcorn, competing with a huge carp or two.

All these turtles were Painted Turtles and one I swear was a released pet because of its odd coloration. I was watching the water as I usually do when I noticed a head pop up that was immensely ugly. I knew immediately it was a snapper, granted a pretty small one, but it was still a snapper. I pointed it out. And then I saw a bigger snapper emerge who slinked through the water and settled on the bottom. He eventually saw a cracker land on the water and leapt towards the movement, accidentally lunging onto the land. With one quick movement he spun around and disappeared into the water.

When I was done with the turtles I wandered back out of the park and then made a hasty retreat to the subway. There was still Antiques Obscura, the shop featured on the show Oddities. It was the last dorky thing I’d be seeing.. When I found the place it was settled in a little neighborhood filled with Turkish bath houses and a hookah bar. The shop itself was perhaps the size of two walk-in closets. Absolutely tiny. However it was filled with garishly bad taxidermy, creepy old medical instruments, likely haunted dolls, and stuffed piranhas. The shop keep seemed rather bored through most of these events and eventually we wandered back into the streets and let him be.

I then found a fantastic little hippie burger joint to eat. They proudly advertised their burgers by saying they were only made using free range cows, something I have always been in full support of knowing from personal experience the vast difference between pasture raised meat and industrial raised. I’m not big on beef though so I opted for their “hormone free” turkey which was delicious – if not confusing… no one feeds turkeys hormones to get them bigger, that’s cows…

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 27, 2011 0

Joliet – Route 66

I decided I should see the beginning of “the mother road,” historic (and now completely renamed) route 66. People in the Chicago area seemed clueless about this and by the time I hit Joliet it was too late for anything to be open except travel centers, gas stations, and a very bleh Wal-Mart. None of these places seemed to have anything. So I stayed in the area… went to the gift shop/museum in the morning. They had what I wanted, finally. I also stopped by the Route 66 park and the ice cream place with the Blues Brothers dancing on their roof. I guess the Blues Brothers was mostly filmed here or something… it was amusing. Even more amusing was the fact that the woman at the gift store said she often got Dutch people coming in there. This makes no sense to me. Why would America’s most nostalgic highway be of any interest to someone living in another country? What an odd concept! Oh well, to each their own. Route 66 is pretty damn cool. Someday I may drive it straight instead of weaving on and off it, backwards…

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 12, 2011 0

Mesa Verde National Park Colorado

While I was camping I came across a pamphlet to Mesa Verde. I had known there were old cliff dwellings somewhere in the area but I mistakenly thought it was Chaco Canyon and I skipped it the last time I was here because of that little mix-up. I decided to go check it out… it was phenomenal!

Driving in I asked the woman who took my entrance fee if it was a hike to see these things. She said yes but otherwise was of no help with my questions, only saying there was an additional guide fee to these places. I really hadn’t the energy to hike into the middle of nowhere and the idea of paying an additional fee for a guide annoyed and confused me. When I ended up at the visitor center everything was cleared up. Basically there is an auto road, free where you can see a lot from a fair distance. Then there is a cliff dwelling you can go into for free, but it is a short hike down and then back up the cliffs. The rest, the guided tours, were to get into all the other dwellings and have someone teach me about them. Each tour had a group of 50 people and were an additional $3 per site to see.

I went into the Spruce Tree House, the free cliff dwelling. There was lots of people. The structure was still a ruin but a very interesting one, there were windows and different rooms, corn grinding stones, and an underground kiva that you could get to by ladder. There was a line for that and I watched as an impossible amount of people file out of it like a clown car. I waited and went in after they came out, making jokes with the girl aside us. “This is the first time I have waited in line to get into someone’s basement.” It was a round and very dark room, reinforced by a number of logs. There wee little niches here and there but all and all it wasn’t that big of a place. After this group of people went in, probably numbering twenty or more, we all filed back out. It was interesting.

I walked back up the cliff. I was huffing and puffing. Hikes straight up hills and cliffs always get to me. When we got to the top we took some photos. I accidentally got in the way of an Asian couple taking a photo (I hadn’t seen them there.) I backed up, smiling.

I entered the museum after this and I fell in love with their black and white pottery which looked so much like some of my own artwork it was a bit eerie. Here they had all sorts of things on display, a set of dioramas displaying the engineering of the structures. The fact all the Indians were depicted wearing loin cloths made me quite tweaky because if they really dressed that way they’d freeze their asses off in winter! Surely enough the next display was on a bunch of clothes remnants archeologists had found… full clothing, head to toe. SIGH. White people are so racist. It reminded me of my grade school text books where the Native Americans celebrating the first Thanksgiving were also prancing around in loin cloths… as if! As much I am in support of such liberating clothing I’ve been in Massachusetts in November. Suffice to say if you don’t want to get frost bite on your balls you better cover up.

I also got to play “guess what the object is for” with a bunch of little items that still baffle anthropologists. I think I had good guesses… rings, game pieces, etc. It was a neat little museum.

Afterwards I decided to take the auto road, with thunder booming in the background and threatening me with rain. The first stop was an overlook of The Square House. It took all my breath away. It looked so perfect and serene sitting in the middle of a cliff. I pondered how they even got into that crevice to build it in the first place, it seemed to be a sheer surface both above and below it. The other tourists remarked how amazing it was and what a lovely surprise.

The next stop I got to see the evolution of the pueblos. They hadn’t always been on a cliff. Apparently the Anasazi were one of the first cultures out here to settle down and make permanent residences instead of living nomadically. At first they built homes underground. I got to see what was left of them. Some still had pottery in tact and venting systems. It was really neat.

I drove around and looked at these things, all under modern structures to keep them preserved. This was fortunate as by now it was pouring. The rain finally let up at the end of the road when I reached the Sun Temple. I could walk around the outside of it and then there was the most amazing thing of all… an overview of almost all the structures here in the park. There before me in the cliffs, hidden, were whole little villages and homes, scattered everywhere. It was like seeing something completely camouflaged come to life. I took photos and gawked for a very long while. The sheer engineering and beauty of these structures was more than enough to marvel at. I was very happy with the trip here.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 5, 2011 0

Dinosaur Footprints Arizona

There was a big tacky sign aside the road reading “Dinosaur footprints!” with a depiction of… Godzilla mixed with a critter and dressed up in psychedelic colors? I’m not sure what the artist was trying to say there… but with a sign that confused how could I not stop? I had a suspicion it was a tourist trap where unwary tourists disappear never to be heard from again. At the time this seemed a fair enough risk. It actually wasn’t bad! I was flagged down as I drove in by a guy standing next to a jewelry stand. He proceeded to take us on a tour, showing us all sorts of footprints from allosaur and velociraptor and two others that either weren’t identified or I forgot. Oddly no herbivorous footprints but I did see baby velociraptor footprints bounding along next to their mommy and one set of baby allosaur footprints ambling alongside its mommy. The neatest part was a track showing where a velociraptor was running full speed, jumped, and then slid in the mud before gaining its balance again. It painted the picture of an athletic and perhaps somewhat clumsy creature. I could imagine them playing in the mud a bit like a big cat.

I was also shown a dinosaur ribcage still embedded in the rock as well as a claw and lots and lots of dinosaur poop. I was given a chip of fossilized vegetation, a little coprolite (fossilized poo) and a sliver of petrified wood found here as well as some red rocks the locals use to make jewelry. I think this may have been just because the guy liked me (I showed genuine interest and didn’t bring any screaming destructive children.) At the end of the tour I was happy and gave our tour guide a tip/donation for the journey back into time. It was really rather neat! He also told me where to find some Anasazi petroglyphs that were about to be fenced off from the public due to vandalism. That pisses me right off by the way… vandals who destroy precious pieces of history like petroglyphs from the eleventh century from an extinct tribe! What the hell! Keep your kids on a fucking leash if they’re the type that does this! I’ll end my rant here.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 1, 2011 0

Monument Valley – Again – Utah

I kind of drove around Monument Valley / Valley of the Gods the first time I went through this area and thought it might be a good idea to actually drive through it this time. I was told the road was “primitive.” You could call it that… you could also call it a road best suited to horses. None of it was paved, and there were potholes half the size of the Jeep every three feet or so. You could almost see the shocks shoot off the car in front of you. In fact if you decide to drive this road you better have the toughest car you can think of and a carton of heavy cream. The cream is so you can have fresh butter by the end of the trip.

That all being said it was well worth the tribulations I put the poor Jeep through. It was gorgeous and you could see most attractions from various points just driving this loop road. There were viewpoints you could park and take photos of and all sorts of people attempting the trip. I also learned later that if you were not foolhardy enough to take your car they did offer bus and horse tours. I strongly suggest the horse tour as this area seems like it’d make a very relaxing ride and their prices were reasonable. $35 for a half an hour all the way up to $120 for six hours, which I think would have been superfluous. A horse could have probably easily walked by the bouncing groaning Jeep.

I took lots of photos, postcard quality and I have the feeling this was worth the trip back. I really shouldn’t have skipped it the first time!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 1, 2011 0

Mount Rushmore South Dakota

As a history buff and a lover of art you’d think I’d be thrilled to visit mount Rushmore. I mean it’s so…. big. Surely if someone had put that much time and effort into making a sculpture you can probably see in outer space it must be amazing, right? yeah, I wasn’t convinced of that either…. but still I find myself here.

I actually missed the exit to go to Mount Rushmore so I ended up going to its antithesis first. Crazy Horse Memorial is a Rushmore-esque mountain carving of the famed Native American leader, basically put up on the mountain in a moment of spite. Hey, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The face is absolutely stunning. I just had hoped more of it was done than the face since it had boasted to someday be a full figure riding a horse. Nope… I saw it, I snapped a quick photo, I left.

Rushmore wasn’t much better. It was free to get into but $11 parking and no way you could see it unless you drove in as trees conveniently blocked the view everywhere else. I walked in. There were people and obnoxious children everywhere. Lining the way was a collection of flags representing each state. NH was faded to the point I’m not really sure what was supposed to be on it (and memory fails to remind me.) The sun was glaring so bad I could only see it by squinting real hard. My cameras were no more fond of this lighting. Still, the story behind it was impressive… one guy’s dream, to sculpt a whole frickin’ mountain… Of course he had to stop at just their heads but isn’t it the thought that counts? Perhaps if Crazy Horse is ever finished then Mount Rushmore might get a make over too. They had an enormous gift shop with overpriced goods, absolutely packed with people. No interesting magnets. The postcards were crap too. I didn’t even buy any. We left.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 29, 2011 0