Porter Sculpture Park - Montrose, South Dakota

 

On our way to our next campground, we made a slight detour to the Porter Sculpture Park. This was an excellent way to break up our drive, have a lunch break, and feast our eyes on some wonderful art.

Wayne Porter, the artist, was actually sitting in the gift shop and talking with all the guests. He is an affable, delightful man.

He keeps the park open except in the winter. During the winter months, he runs his sheep farm and creates his art.

He has a wonderful sense of humor and is a bit of a philosopher.

He is self-taught and his work is amazing.

I think the butterfly piece was my favorite.

Entitled "Pain and Joy"

Pain and joy can co-exist

But neither lasts forever.

The butterfly flies away.

The thorn is removed.

Entitled "Dream Afraid to Be Ridden"

The horse can not run.

It can only rock.

It can only be free when it is ridden.

Some pieces are quite complex with a lot happening.

This one made me think of the nursery rhyme - Little Miss Muffet - but no tuffet.

This captures the terror and exhilaration of childhood.

Not all of the pieces have a poem or story attached.

This piece is entitled "The Ballerina"

It has a story of a woman who cleans the auditorium as the ballerinas rehearse. The cleaner dreams of dancing on the stage. Her dreams are golden that she gathers in her bucket.

Some of the pieces are just joyful.

This was my second favorite piece - "The Yankee Ron" has the story of Wayne's brother, Ron, attempting to ride a donkey they use to guard their flock of sheep. Wayne tells his brother he is going to create a statue of Ron attempting to ride and Ron says, "That's fine, just make me taller."

This piece is entitled "The Red Hammer"

Anything worth building may break a few hammers.

This piece is entitled "Mirror Image"

Humans are like wild boars. We are more alike than different. Wild boars will attack each other for no reason.

This rock isn't one of his artworks, but he has a sign next to it.

This piece is entitled "The Wise Man"

The wise man sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil...but in order to reach this point of enlightenment, he has been mangled by life.

The artist has entitled this piece "The Magic Dragon".

Apparently, locals and tourists have often proposed in front of the dragon.

No title for this one, but I would call it "Incredulous"

"Cracked GoldFish Bowl"

Said one fish to the other,

"Let us find a way out...explore"

Said the other,

"We are goldfish, we live in a bowl."

"Yes, but there must be a crack, a door, a soul"

But, they never found one.

But, they swam far.

"Buzzard Row"

They are reincarnated politicians, ready to pick the bones of their constituents.

Oakwood Lakes State Park - Brookings, South Dakota

 

The park is right next to a lake. They rent kayaks, but the office is closed during the week.

There is an RV dump at the park entrance which is very easy to access and use.

We were the only ones in the equestrian campground. There are several campsites throughout the park. All the campsites have electrical and some are even full hook-up, but horse people get nada - no hook-ups and a single water pump at the campground entrance.

On the plus side, there is a large arena with grass. Since we were the only campers, we used the arena instead of the corrals so the horses had plenty of space and could graze.

On the negative side, it appears that bot flies have laid eggs in my horse's mane. They are really really hard to remove. I de-wormed both horses as a precaution. It takes 3-10 days for the eggs to hatch into maggots, so I have a couple of days to figure out how to get the eggs out of his mane.

There are swarms of mosquitoes and flies. I expect the lake is the reason for all the mosquitoes.

We can't go outside without heavily spraying ourselves. We put fly sheets on both horses to protect them.

We drove around the park to see some of the sites...too many mosquitoes to walk.

The burial mounds are just large grassy hills.

There is an old well-chinked log cabin that was built by a trapper over 100 years ago.

We did manage one ride around the lake. The trails are well maintained and pretty, but the insects were just awful. 

Kampeska Equestrian Center - Watertown, South Dakota

 

We like to break up the driving and sometimes it's hard to find a place to overnight. I called up Kampeska Equestrian Center and asked if we could overnight there. Pamela, the owner, was hesitant. She had no experience as a horse motel, but was willing to give it a try.

We set up our portable corrals in one of their pastures.

We needed to empty our tanks, so on the way into Watertown, we stopped at the Dakota Sioux Casino - which has RV hook-ups and a free RV dump.

I love the dreamcatcher on the roof of the casino. Really cool design!

The RV dump was easy to access, totally free and we were pretty happy.

Kampeska is a really nice boarding stables. There is a round pen, a nice arena, and an obstacle course. There are also trails off the property, but we didn't check them out.

Watertown is also a beautiful place. Kampeska Lake is close by and most of the houses have their backyards on the lake.

We were able to go into town and go grocery shopping and even managed to go see a movie.

The town is only about 30 minutes from the stables and it is a good-sized town with lots of places to eat and shops.

We stayed an extra day because of Rosh Hashana. We had planned for it just to be one night, but the High Holiday creeped up on us. We needed to have electricity so we could run our laptops in order to join the Zoom services with our congregation back in Santa Cruz.

So, we managed to plug into the electrical outlet in the barn.

Ari rode both horses in the arena and rode the obstacle course with my horse.

I scored this really nice t-shirt from Pamela. I am not sure what she expected when she agreed to put us up for the night and then we ended up staying two nights and using her electricity when we had initially said we would just be boondocking for one night. 

It was a nice stay and I hope that future equestrian travelers will be able to enjoy her hospitality.

Meadowlark, a horse motel in Florence, North Dakota

 

Meadowlark is a listing on horsemotel.com. This is the perfect place to stop to break up a long drive.

There is no shopping close by, so have all your supplies stocked before you head in.

$20 per horse and they get this fabulous green pasture to roam and graze. This is Hilton five star accommodations as far as our horses are concerned.

Trailer parking is free. We got water and electric hook-up.

A really nice level spot - plenty of room for a large rig.

No trails, but Ari rode my horse both days just using the dirt/gravel roads around the property.

Sheyenne Oaks - Leonard, North Dakota

 

This campground exceeded our expectations in many ways.

We had full hook-up for our trailer. The campsites were spacious and well kept.

There was a laundry room with one washer and one dryer. The dryer didn't work very well, but the clothes came out clean.

I had booked a massage for each of us when I booked the campground. It was wonderful to be able to just walk through the campground to one of the cabins in order to get our massage.

The corrals were a bit disappointing. No cover on any of the corrals. Standard 12' x 12' and many of them were not clean or filled with weeds.

It rained the day after our arrival - pretty much the entire day a steady stream of water. Ari put up our new pop-up shelter to provide some cover for the horses and they definitely appreciated it.

To pass the rainy day, I went into Fargo - about an hour away. I visited the Plains Art Museum. The had these cute gender pins in the gift shop. 

They had a gallery with the theme of light. 

This piece is meant to act as a response to the classic artwork The End of the Trail.

Fraser first modeled the subject in 1894. He based it on his experience as a boy in the Dakota Territory. His memoirs state, "as a boy, I remembered an old Dakota trapper saying, 'The Indians will someday be pushed into the Pacific Ocean.'" Later he stated "the idea occurred to me of making an Indian which represented his race reaching the end of the trail, at the edge of the Pacific."

The artist is a Native American and his response is that at the end of the trail is "light" and you can't extinguish the light of the indigenous people.

This is a bag decorated with mirrors. What struck me was the informational plate which said the mirrors are used to reflect back evil intentions or envy. 

This piece was designed by an aerospace engineer named John Macpherson. He spent 20 years working as an engineer, then switched to art and actually got a degree in visual arts. His art explores applying mathematical and scientific principals to the piece.

This artwork represents the different wavelengths of light and the colors each wavelength can produce.

So, it is a physical representation of a principal of physics.

I am impressed by someone who spent half his life in a very "left-brained" field and now has switched to using his right brain but applying what he learned in his earlier career.

This piece is by an Israeli artist called Yaacov Agam and is entitled French Postage Stamp.

It uses lenticular images which basically changes the way the piece looks depending on the angle. 

This is the same method to use to create greeting cards where the image changes.

Lenticular printing is a multi-step process which consists of creating a lenticular image from at least two images, and combining it with a lenticular lens. This process can be used to create various frames of animation (for a motion effect), offsetting the various layers at different increments (for a 3D effect), or simply to show a set of alternative images which may appear to transform into each other. Once the various images are collected, they are flattened into individual, different frame files, and then digitally combined into a single final file in a process called interlacing.

On Thursday, it had dried up enough for us to try to hit the trails. 

We rode through a pasture filled with cows.

The trails were flat and well marked, easy to follow.

We really liked this campground - full hook-up, beautiful trails, and an on-site massage.

After a day stuck in a small corral, my horse was amped up and spooked by the cows. 

He took off on me. I managed to stay in the saddle, but it was a scary ride.

We are going to be staying at an equestrian center for a couple of days coming up.

 I am hoping I can use their arena and their round pen to get my horse back under control and settled down.

Fort Ransom - North Dakota

 

Fort Ransom - our last state park in North Dakota. Once again, Google Maps failed us, directing us to take 60th Street, which is a dead end. We met another vehicle on the road whose driver advised us to turn around. We managed to turn around at a cemetery without damaging anything.

To access the park, enter the Visitor Center as the destination and take the Hjelle Parkway to the 2nd Street entrance.

We checked in at the visitor center and topped off our fresh water tank.

There are electric hook-ups, but no water and sewer hook-ups at the equestrian campsites.

There are two equestrian campsites in the park - the Sunne campground is 100% dry camping. The Riverside Campground has electric hook-ups and water pumps available.

Vault toilets are at both campgrounds. No shower house and no laundry.

There is an RV dump located at the Westside campground and a large dumpster is there as well.

Horses are in 10 ft x 10 ft corrals - uncovered.

We camped at the Riverside campground. The campsites are large, some shade, and well maintained.

Check out all the pretty yellow daisies. We rode through the Sheyenne Grasslands. Trails are flat and easy, some inclines, but nothing like the Badlands. 

My horse is still acting up on the trail. He spooks and bolts. So far, I have managed to stay in the saddle, but I am not feeling safe. 

I need to build up Mercutio's confidence on the trail and mine as well.

We are going to aim for shorter rides with very tame trails moving forward until he calms down.

Ari loved the trails. They were well marked and maintained and I would have loved to have been able to explore more, but I couldn't trust my horse to behave.

Hopefully, with a little more work, he will calm down and become more safe.