Home, Home on the Rez

We're back home at the Rosebud Casino Quality Inn after two days of driving. It was a quick run up the middle of the country; we stopped outside of Dallas for some great barbeque at the house of an '05 SoDak corps member, and then stayed last night in Wichata, Kansas, where our low quality Super 8 felt like a palace after the wonders of Moody Towers.

A parting shot of the Mood:


A couple shots of downtown Houston from the road. I never actually made it downtown, and I sort of wish I had. I don't really have a good sense of Houston, except that I didn't like it much.


Outside of Houston there is a huge statue of Sam Houston. There was a billboard we passed beforehand that said "The Tallest Statue in the World." We scratched our heads (Statue of Liberty, anyone?) and then noticed the small type underneath where it said "of an American Hero." Way to go, Sam Houston. I would have liked to have stopped, but we were on a schedule. Next time I roll through Houston, I guess. I wasn't able to get a very good shot of it, either.


Dallas from the road. Besides OK City, it was the only real city we passed on the way up.


This morning (day 2 on the road), we stopped for gas in a very, very small town in Kansas. Basically just an abandoned looking house and a gas station.




A ways south of Valentine, Nebraska (the town closest to the Rosebud Casino) we could see a huge wall of smoke coming up. As we got closer, we realized it was coming from very close to Valentine. There has a been a pretty nasty heat wave this week--100 degree days in South Dakota everyday, and according to Ryan, our Executive Director, it was 117 degrees in Pierre yesterday, an all-time record high. Couple that with the really dry environment, and you have a recipe for wildfires. We turned on the radio and heard that the flames were 500 feet high. The fire certainly looked huge, and was spreading. A few of the smaller patches were probably about a half mile or less from the highway. This is only 8 miles south of where I am now, and these pictures are about 2 hours old, so I have no doubt that this fire is still burning, and burning big.



The Rosebud Casino, my home for one more week. Tomorrow I will actually be going out to Crazy Horse and getting into my future house, where Luke and I will drop off some of our stuff.