matthewcward
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We drove from Rapid City through the Black Hills. We came upon the Black Hills expecting to see hills, but instead, we saw mountains, at least as grandiose as the Appalachians. The name ‘Black Hills’ comes from the Lakota words Paha Sapa, meaning ‘hills that are black.’ From a distance, the densely forested slopes appear
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Today, we drove through the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and stopped at the Wounded Knee Memorial. The memorial site was small, and apart from a sign in the car park, there was little to indicate to passersby that this was the site of an important event in American history. Entering the town of
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As we drove across Nebraska, we followed the Platte and North Platte rivers. It became very obvious just how vital the river systems were in this region. The towns, rivers, railroads, roads, and farms were all clustered along the river, and I was surprised at the amount of woodland. I recognised some of the cottonwood
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We have been driving across Nebraska. On my first trip in 1984, the drive across Nebraska is etched into my memory. The Greyhound bus took Route 30 — the route we had been following — and I remember being shocked by the size of the state. It took us a whole day to cross it,
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As we drove south towards Hastings, we came across a sign ‘Welcome to Doniphan: Preserving “The Good Life.”‘ This was a rather strangely phrased sign. I could see a sign saying “where you can live the good life” or “where you can find the good life.” However, preserving the good life suggests that it is
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As we neared Kansas City, we decided to detour and visit the restored nineteenth-century Fort Osage. Perched on bluffs overlooking the Missouri River in Jackson County, Missouri, Fort Osage is a reconstruction of the original fort providing a representation of what the site would have looked like in the early 1800s. It is striking how
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While having breakfast in Kansas City, everyone was watching the news. The film of the riots in Los Angeles and the National Guard’s use of tear gas was causing some consternation. I was chatting to a couple of people about the news, as we are heading West, but fortunately, not to Los Angeles. What strikes
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Driving through St Louis we had to stop and visit the Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch was initially called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It was established in 1935 by Executive Order 7253, according to the National Park Service. The park’s name was officially changed to Gateway Arch National Park in 2018 by Congress to
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We visited Cahokia. The site, located about 8 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis, stands as one of the most remarkable pre-Columbian archaeological sites in North America. It was once the epicenter of a powerful Native American civilization, and around the time of the Norman Conquest, it had a population larger than that of London
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On our way to St. Louis we stopped off at Vincennes. The town is one of the oldest in the Ohio Valley, founded in 1732 by French military officer François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes. It was established as a French trading post along the Wabash River, it served as a strategic location for trade and
Early American Musings 