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11/10/2026

Geographic Center of the Nation Monument South Dakota
While the center of the contiguous United States is marked by a small plaque and plinth in Kansas, the actual center of the United States (including Hawaii and Alaska) is off in a field in South Dakota.

But the actual monument is about 20 miles away from that. Hawaii became the last U.S. state to join the union in 1959. Previously the middle of the nation had been mapped as a spot in Lebanon, Kansas, but this point moved over 200 miles with the addition of the island state.

The new spot was determined to be out in the middle of some South Dakota farmland, where a metal pole was driven into the ground to mark the location. This seemed like kind of a weak way to honor the very middle of America, so the city of Belle Fourche, a little over 20 miles south of the makeshift marker, decided to do it up right.

In 2008, they installed a large granite compass rose and dubbed it the “Center of the Nation” monument. There is even a metal disc in the middle that looks like an official geographic marker for people to stand on and take pictures. Sure, it might not be on the exact center of the country, but let’s face it, this lovely granite compass makes a better photo op than some pole in a field!

11/10/2026

Badlands National Park is a massive, crumbling, alien sandbox in South Dakota where nature spent millions of years carving out a giant natural maze of striped rock spires, deep canyons, and mustard-yellow mounds.

“Bad Lands to Cross” is a translation of the Lakota words mako sica (land bad), and early French trappers agreed it was some of the toughest terrain to travel through on foot or horseback.

Unlike most national parks that scream at you to stay on the trail, the Badlands basically tells you: “Go climb that weird mud-castle over there.” You can legally scramble, wander, and explore off-trail almost wherever you feel brave. Except for the signs “Beware Rattlesnakes.” Just say no.

Long before it looked like a sci-fi movie set, this place was a flat, swampy ancient sea and a jungle roaming with three-toed horses, rhinos, and saber-toothed cats. Today, it is one of the richest fossil beds on Earth.

You will share the park with 2,000-pound bison, bighorn sheep chilling on sharp ledges, and loud, dramatic prairie dog towns that act like tiny underground apartment complexes.

11/10/2026

11/08/2026

Cathedral of Saint Helena - I love find a beautiful church!

After the site for this church was purchased in 1905, A. O. Von Herbulis, trained in the cathedrals of Europe, was commissioned for the design.
Perhaps that’s why this neo-Gothic design complete with soaring spires looks a bit out of place in the otherwise squat town of Helena, Montana. Modeled on the famous Votive Church of the Sacred Heart in Vienna, Austria, the Cathedral of St. Helena is enjoyed by residents, who appreciate its grandeur.

The spires rise 230 feet above street level and can be seen from all points in the town. The church is noted for its artistic interior as much as for its impressive exterior. High, vaulted ceilings and hand-carved oak pews greet visitors to the church, who are also immediately struck by the tall pillars and striking lighting fixtures throughout. Construction on the cathedral began in 1908, with the cornerstone laid on October 4.

After six years, the community got together to celebrate the Eucharist for the first time in their new church on November 8, 1914, though the finishing touches weren’t put on the building until a decade later, in June of 1924.

A series of earthquakes hit Montana in 1935, and sections of the church were almost completely destroyed. Reconstruction was completed three years later, but that wasn’t the last time the church would be repaired. The cathedral was renovated again from 1982 to 1983, when many of the famous stained glass windows were touched up, and again from 1999 to 2000, when columns that had been damaged in a Montana Rail Link train crash 11 years earlier were repaired.

The windows (there is a gallery of different designs on the church’s official website) were made and installed by the F. X. Zettler Firm of Munich, Bavaria. It took years to finish installing all of the church’s 59 windows, which were hand-crafted in Bavaria and shipped to Montana. Many of the windows are part of a series that tells the story of the church from the fall of Adam and Eve up through the early 20th century.

Currently the roof is getting repairs and reconstruction!

11/08/2026

11/07/2026

Prairie Dog Town
This stop provides a perfect view of the largest prairie-dog town in the accessible areas of Badlands National Park. Other than the mounds of dirt where the prairie dogs have made their homes, the first thing you will likely notice is the high-pitched squeaks and noises coming from the Prairie dogs.

Outside of Badlands National Park there is a prairie dog of a disturbing size. Surrounded by an actual prairie dog colony, this concrete giant towers 12 feet over its little friends at a whopping six tons. The massive pink and ocher mascot to the colony below has been watching over this little corner of the Badlands for over 50 years, and despite a little weather wear and tear, shows no sign of going anywhere anytime soon.
The attraction is free, and for $1.00 you can buy peanuts at the Ranch Store Gift Shop to feed the (in comparison) teensy prairie dogs of the non-concrete variety.

11/07/2026

Devils Tower- it’s a butte!
Devils Tower got its name from a mistranslation during an 1875 U.S. government expedition. For centuries, surrounding Native American tribes (including the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho) sacredly referred to the landmark as Bear Lodge. In 1875, Colonel Richard Irving Dodge led a scientific survey party into the Black Hills. Dodge later reported that the local tribes called the place “bad god’s tower,” which was adapted into Devils Tower. Historians and linguists believe Dodge’s interpreter mistakenly translated the Lakota word for bear into a word associated with a bad spirit or god, leading to the erroneous name.
Devils Tower is a laccolithic butte (see notes below), composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 ft from summit to base.
Scientists debate how Devil’s Tower was formed, but agree that about 65 million years ago, molten lava was forced into existing hard rock formations, cooling and eroding over millions of years into this striking formation that stands 1,267 feet above the landscape.
The site is sacred to the Lakota people and many other Plains Tribes, and President Theodore Roosevelt declared it the nation’s first national monument in 1906.
Because I needed to look this up: A laccolith is a dome-shaped, intrusive igneous rock body that forms when magma pushes its way between horizontal layers of sedimentary rock and forces the overlying strata upward into a bulge. And a butte is an isolated, steep-sided hill with a small, relatively flat top, formed by wind and water erosion acting on harder caprock that protects softer layers underneath.

11/07/2026

Noah’s Ark and the Mountains of Ararat

“…and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.” Genesis 8:4

The mountains of Ararat are a vast region of northeastern Turkiye, northwestern Iran and Armenia - the region of ancient Urartu. Ararat is a Semitic version of Urartu, both referring to the same geographic area. We often think only of a single mountain peak, Mnt Ararat, or maybe two (Mnt Ararat and little Ararat), but this entire area is mountainous terrain, with Ararat as its highest peak. A landscape formed by ancient volcanic and glacial forces. Traveling here for the first time enabled us to see why the ancient kingdom of Urartu was called a mountain kingdom and why “Ararat” is much more than a single snow capped peak.

This September during a trip to Eastern Turkiye we were able to visit the Durupinar Noah’s Ark formation in the mountains of Ararat so much in the news these days! We arrived very skeptical and left less skeptical!! The arguments for and against this site are all over face book and You Tube and even in network news programs recently. We will all have to wait for more scientific work to be planned, executed, and the results to be analyzed, and all of that takes time. Belief in the truth of the Biblical account of the flood doesn’t hinge on proving the Durupinar site to be Noah’s ark, but it is a more intriguing possible to us now.

Over the next few weeks we will post more detailed photos of the formation and of the interesting Noah connections to the surrounding area. Today we have a few general photos to get started. (FYI - there are many AI generated images of the Durupinar formation on the internet. These are our photos, taken in person. The formation and even the remote possibility that it could be Noah's ark are sensational enough and do not need enhancement!)

For Biblical travel photos and videos, visit us at Scripture In Stone blog.

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