Spent all morning and part of the afternoon exploring the Badlands National Park. At the Visitor’s Center we learned that when we last visited in 1973 that this area was a national monument and that the emphasis was on the scenery. Since then it has been designated by Congress as a national park and now there is a greater emphasis on the history and the science of the area. We got up close and personal by hiking the Window and the Door trails to some incredible scenes. We took the fossil walk and saw a few specimens that had been uncovered in the area. After finishing the loop drive we stopped for refreshment and amusement at Wall Drug before driving west and finding a campsite near Hill City, South Dakota. There we broke out the big tent and set up camp for a four night stay!
Ever since its debut on Broadway the two of us have wanted to see “Wicked the Musical”. Today we realized that dream. In the Apollo Victoria Theater in London’s West End we were witness to the incredible prequel to The Wizard of Oz, the story of the Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.
London’s National Portrait Gallery’s temporary exhibition, “Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens” presents an amazing collection of portraits, jewelry, personal effects, books, costumes, and more to illustrate not only the lives of the six women who married the second Tudor king, but the effort across five centuries to keep their memory alive.
The purpose of our trek to Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham in the southwest of London was to see a recently recovered bronze bust of the Emperor Caligula but we discovered so much more in the recently restored 18th Century “little Gothic castle” built by Horace Walpole.
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