On the Road

I haven't been doing a lot of art or blog posts recently because I've been on a road trip across part of the country with Howard and my son, Scott. We left last Sunday from Portland (Oregon) and are heading to Omaha, Nebraska. Yep, Omaha. Scott's girlfriend was accepted at Creighton Medical School and Scott decided it was true love and he wanted to be with her. So, Scott quit his job, bought a house in Omaha, and landed a management job at a major store chain. All of his belongings are now in a POD hurtling across the states, and will be delivered to his new home in Omaha tomorrow. Once we found out about how slick the POD system works, we were pretty pumped to jump in Scott's car and head east (we were originally looking at renting a Penske truck and towing his car!).

Here's a little photo montage of our trip to date (I'm writing this from Rapid City, South Dakota, at the gateway to Mount Rushmore, where we're heading today).

Spokane, Washington, was a delightful surprise!






While in Spokane, we discovered the Dumpster Art of Jim Battell!




I found Butte, Montana, charming . . . maybe it was the ghost town feel it had!




While in Butte, we became temporary miners (we really did go into a mine shaft).








Also in Butte we got to peek into the Dumas Hotel (aka whore house):



A fun surprise was located right outside of Butte, Our Lady of the Rockies (Scott dubbed her Scary Mary). Mary is nestled in the mountains of the Continental Divide and is as tall as the Statue of Liberty!




We spent an entire day in Yellowstone - always a treat.





A pit stop in Buffalo, Wyoming.



It's a chopper, baby, it's a chopper. We swung through Sturgis, South Dakota. And get this. It is rally week. I called my friend Sam of Lil' Gypsy as we drove past a place that holds many memories for her (the Broken Spoke). And in case you haven't heard of Sturgis, it is the home of a major motorcycle rally and this year is the 69th anniversary. These photos don't show any of the motorcycles, but believe me there are thousands and thousands on the streets AND hundreds in about a five hundred mile radius. They're everywhere - we started seeing them in Butte, Montana and they got thicker and thicker the closer to South Dakota we drove. If you're intrigued by this event, just click here.

Thunder storm as we thundered through Deadwood.

On an evening stroll through downtown Rapid City, we discovered this fun little arted up alley.




And you know that my blog post would not be complete without some junk finds.





There were four pair of old skates in this store - one pair is safely at the bottom of my suitcase.

Some of my purchases:



I discovered a secondhand shop in Butte that was going out of business, Raven's Rock, so Rocky, the store owner, was ready to make a deal. I made a pile on his counter, and he gave me a great deal on a lot of cool stuff. I went back for another walk through it was such a great find.









Since you've hung in there and made it to the end of the post, I'm going to reward (punish?) you with a little mini post I'm calling: Bling Teeth. Forgive me.