More than 26,000 years ago large Columbian and Whooly Mammoths were trapped and died in a spring-fed pond near what is now the southwest edge of Hot Springs, South Dakota. They sunk into the clay ridden mud and were fossilized - entire bodies were preserved. One day thousands of years later, an excavation crew was digging at the site getting the site ready to build houses when the tractor hit something really big. It was the preserved fossil body of a gigantic W...

On Monday the 23rd we visited the home of Doug Hansmann & Denise Thornton. They worked with Whole Tree architecture (an amazing company) and a local builder to design and build a whole tree house using trees harvested from their own property. Nothing was wasted building this house, even the trim was made out of unused parts of the trees, as well as bookshelves and kitchen and bathroom counters.Whole Tree building was founded by Roald Gunderson the owner and vis...

We visited with Amelia Baxter, the owner of Whole Tree Architecture and one of the staff architects. We were also lucky to spend some time with Derek who has worked for Whole Tree for many years building and creating unique whole tree pieces for homes out of Whole Trees forest. Amelia gave us a tour of the first houses Roald built and lived in and we discussed their approach to building. We were excited to see Roald's cool A frame built entirely with Whole...

We were so excited to finally see this site we have read so much about. About 12 million years ago, a volcano in southwest Idaho spread a blanket of ash over a very large area. One or two feet of this powdered glass covered the flat savannah-like grasslands of northeastern Nebraska. Most of the animals which lived here survived the actual ashfall, but as they continued to graze on the ash covered grasses, their lungs began to fill up with the abrasive powder...

Our first night of real camping. We stayed on Goose island camp ground, which was next to the Mississippi river. There had been a lot of recent rain so the river was up much higher than normal. Many camp sites were flooded out. It did rain while we were there but we did not let that dampen our fun.