Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  For my holiday post, I'm going to share my favorite places to look at Christmas lights.

First up, the Charlestown, Indiana town square, which I visit every year.  Though I always just go to Light Up Charlestown for the lights, there is plenty for everyone in addition to the lights.  They have train rides and visits with Santa for the kids, to name a couple.  The website is here.

The Louisville Mega Cavern has an amazing light display.  The cavern started out as a limestone quarry.  According to the website, it is the largest building in Kentucky, despite being underground.  There are over a hundred acres of space in the cavern and it goes under all 10 lanes of the Watterson Expressway and 70% of the Louisville Zoo.  At Christmastime, there are over 850 light displays and over 2 million points of light.  To see the lights, you drive your car through the cavern.  More information here.

Finally, the Galt House, which I visited for the first time this year.  The main attraction is the KaLightoscope, which has a different theme every year.  This year it was A Christmas Carol.  Instead of regular light displays, they use silk luminaries.  These are very unique and interesting.  There are also activities for the kids, characters, Santa, gingerbread houses, a village, and shows.  You can find more info here.

Devil's Tower

I'm sure you all remember the mashed potato sculpture in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Time: Entertainment

 And the spaceship:

Basement Rejects

 That really cool rock formation is Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  It doesn't have a top secret government facility at the bottom, though.  Actually it is a National Monument.

 

You can hike the trail that goes around it, as we did (lovely views).  If you are more adventurous, you can climb it. 

The tower was formed by the intrusion of igneous materal.  Everyone can agree on that much.  What they can't agree on is how that happened.  There are many theories:  It is an eroded laccolith (a huge mushroom shaped rock that does not reach the surface); It is a volcanic plug or neck of an extinct volcano; It is a stock (magma that cooled underground and is later exposed by erosion).

As the rock cooled and cracked hexagonal columns were formed.

No matter what process formed the rock, it was exposed by erosion.  The area around it contiues to erode, exposing more of the tower.  The tower itself also continues to erode so that it is smaller than it was originally.  Often rocks fall and land around the base of the tower.

 The tower has long been known to Native Americans and several tribes have traditions about the tower.  In the Kiowa and Lakota traditions, girls were out playing when some bears began chasing them.  The girls climbed on a rock and prayed to the great spirit who caused the rock to grow into the tower.  It was too steep for the bears to climb, but they left claw marks.

Wikipedia

The Sioux version is very similar, though it is two boys who are being chased by Mato the bear.  The boys were eventually helped off the new mountain by an eagle.  The Cheyenne version is more violent.  Most of the girls being chased by the bear are killed, but two escape to get help from two boys.  As the bear tries to climb the mountain, leaving claw marks, to get to the girls, the boys shoot arrows at its left foot (the fatal weakness).  The boys come close enough to hitting the foot that bear leaves never to return.

 The first documented visitors to the tower were members of Captain Raynold's Expidition to Yellowstone in 1859.  In 1875, Colonial Richard Dodge led an Office of Indian Affairs Scientific Survey party to the tower.  They came up with the name Devil's Tower.

In 1892 the tower became part of a US Forest Reserve, designated by Congress.  Later, in 1906, the tower became the first National Monument, thanks to Teddy Roosevelt.

 The first person to climb the tower (as far as anyone knows) was William Rogers in 1893.  With the help of Willard Ripley, he built a 350 foot ladder to the top and braced it by hammering stakes into the rock wall.  The he climbed it in front of a crowd of spectators and planted an American flag at the top.  Other climbers used the ladder until 1927 and part of it can still be seen, though it requires a telescope.

Wikipedia

The first to climb the tower using rock climbing techniques was Fritz Weissner in 1937.  It took him (and two companions) 4 hours and 46 minutes.  The most popular route, which has about 1,000 climbers a year (of all ages!), was determined by Jack Durrance.

George Hopkins parachuted onto the top in 1941.  Unfortunatley for him, his planned descent didn't work and he was stuck at the top for six days.  Food was dropped to him by airplane until climbers were finally able to rescue him.  He is the only person to get to the top without climbing.  Today, many people climb the tower, but it requires rock climbing experience and equipment.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

One of the most interesting and unusual national parks is Great Sand Dunes National Park.  Located in  Alamosa and Saguache counties, Colorado, the park is definitely worth seeing.  As you would expect, it is far from civilization, though there is a restaurant on the road just before the park if you get hungry.  It is called the Oasis and seems to me to be part of the experience.  I remember eating there, at least, which is more than I can say for a lot of places I've eaten on vacation.

The dunes are huge, which you don't really fully realize until you try to walk around.  I had visions of walking at the very top of the dunes, but I never made anywhere near that far.  It is super hard work (and great exercise) walking on even the flat part at the edge.  

It looks like it isn't far from the deck entrance to the hills of the dunes, but when you start walking it you realize that the distance is much larger than it appears.  I probably didn't even get halfway across the flat part before I was exhausted and gave up!  If you are more athletic than I am, you can hike across the top.

The dunes are about 750 feet high and very, very old.  Every day they look different as the sand is blown around by the wind.  While scientists are still learning about the dunes, it is generally accepted that much of the sand comes from ancient lakes that used to be in the valley.  Wind then blew this sand into the area it is in now, which is kind of a natural pocket in the surrounding mountain passes.  Opposing winds also blow the sand the other way, which creates the hill like parts.  You can read more (and see some helpful graphics) here.

Human history at the dunes also goes back a long way.  Native Americans have known about the dunes for hundreds of years, at least, with several tribes using the area for camping, hunting, and gathering.  The Spanish explorer Don Diego de Vargas passed through the area in 1694.  The first written mention of the dunes was in Zebulon Pike's journals in 1807.  As more people moved west, homesteaders began appearing by the 1870s.  By the 1930s, there were even attempts to mine gold from the sand.  The locals were scared that this might destroy the dunes, so they petitioned Congress to make the dunes a national monument, which they did in 1932.  The monument became a national park in 2000.

More Hollywood Studios

Hollywood Studios is one of the most fun Disney World Parks.  There is plenty to see and do after you have ridden Star Tours over and over.  (There was even a little more Star Wars to see!)

The Studio Backlot Tour was a tram ride that took you through some movie special effects.  Unfortunately in researching this post, I discovered that it closed last month.  Over the years the ride had gotten smaller and smaller to make way for other attractions.  It was still there when we visited last winter and I was happy to see the Star Wars vehicles I remembered and disappointed that the Golden Girls' house was gone.  The most famous parts of the ride--the special effects water tank and Catastrophe Canyon survived until the end.

After the ride, you could tour the American Film Institute Showcase, which featured props from famous movies.  My favorites included Indiana Jones, ET, and Titanic.

The Great Movie Ride is one of the famous Disney animatronic rides, though it also includes live action.  The outside of the ride is set up like the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater, complete with hand prints.  The ride itself takes you through scenes of great movies.  Most scenes are recreated using animatronics, but some of the scenes also require the guides to play parts.

Muppet Vision 3D is, as the name implies, a 3D Muppet movie.  The movie takes you on a tour of Muppet Labs.  It is really more of a 4D movie since you are squired with water and air and bubbles.  There are also a couple of animatronic cameos of Statler and Waldorf and Bean Bunny.  It is a must see.  Outside is a very cool Muppet Statue.

 For all of you who love history as much as I do, be sure to check out the Walt Disney:  One Man's Dream exhibit.  It includes items from Walt Disney's Life and the life of the park.  I especially enjoyed seeing Walt's office and the insides of an old version of the animatronic Abraham Lincoln from the Hall of Presidents.  There are also models of Disney attractions.  (Peter Pan is below)

Streets of America is created to look like New York City and San Francisco.  It was originally a working backlot, but is now just an attraction to walk through.  As you can see, my visit was at Christmastime.

 Finally, there are a couple of famous landmarks at Hollywood Studios.  The first is the Sorcerer's Hat, which doubles as a stage.

The second, and older, landmark is the Earful Tower.