Most of our vacations in the Great Plains have been specifically aimed at hiking along old West trails or camping in the grasslands. But naturally, we've visited all sorts of interesting parks, museums and other historic sites along the way. The purpose of this section, then, is to alert you to some exciting side trips you can take. The other pages in this Web presentation have told you about Historic Trails and our National Grasslands. In this chapter of Trails and Grasslands you'll learn about county, state and national parks that don't fit the categories just mentioned. And I'll describe many of the fascinating and out-of-the-way museums or roadside attractions we've seen, some of which are kookie or very little known.

Getting There is Half the Fun

I know people whose idea of a holiday is to shoot from home to a destination in one fell swoop, covering as many miles as possible, just looking straight ahead through the windshield. That's not a vacation, that's a race. Slow down, take off the blinkers, look out the side windows and see what you've been missing along the way. A trip can have many destinations, not just one.

Since my partner and I have made a bazillion side trips on our vacations, these chapters are apt to become very large. Heck, the section devoted to South Dakota alone has turned out to be gargantuan! So, you can expect these pages to be perpetually under construction. I'll try to add new items weekly, though, so please check back from time to time.

As usual, I've got a ton of photos to show you, but to take pity on your modem, bandwidth and patience, I've done the following. In the pages after this, most photos are shown in thumbnail (reduced size) format. If you'd like to see the real thing, just click the thumbnail. This will enlarge the picture to its normal size.

There's so much to put in this Web presentation. But I've got to start somewhere, so I picked South Dakota as the state to write up first.

Don't Get Lost!

Because Trails and Grasslands is becoming quite extensive in its coverage, I worry that you'll get lost in these pages and might miss something neat. Maybe a quick description of the layout will help.

If you know the state you'd like to look at, then come back to this main page (Side Trips) and just click your selection in the mini-menu at the top. That'll take you directly to the desired state.

Once there, you'll get some general information about the state, and another mini-menu (again appearing at the top) will let you pick a particular attraction.

Of course, if you've been reading the pages in this presentation in order, like a book, then you can continue to do so by clicking the big blue arrows at the bottom of the page. These will thread through all of states and each of their attractions in order. And you can always use the Complete Site Index pulldown, below, to find any page in this Web presentation.