One of the “must visit” places on our recent trip through North Dakota was a place called The Enchanted Highway. The Roadside America website gives this brief overview, and you can visit the link for more details:
“Thirty miles south of the nearest major highway, the town of Regent was dying, and Gary Greff decided someone had to do something about it.
A metal sculptor and retired school teacher, Gary started the work in 1990. His master plan was to create ten giant sculptures, one every few miles along Regency-Gladstone Road, paired with picnic areas and playground equipment. All the sculptures face north, toward the oncoming traffic from the interstate. Seven have been completed.
An additional sculpture towers along I-94, essentially an artistic billboard enticing travelers to exit and head south to Regent. Geese in Flight went up in 2001, next to the Gladstone exit — and it is claimed to be the World’s Largest Outdoor Sculpture.”
Our visit occurred on one of the nastiest (relatively in North Dakota terms!) of our trip. We started off in the morning with rain and 35 degrees, went through 3-4 inches of snow at 31-32 degrees, then finally ended up in Rapid City where it had warmed to a welcome 40 degrees with light drizzle. You can see the progression of rain to snow in the photos, as the snow increased as we went south on the route.
It’s easy to see the mud that we found at all of the pulloffs, so I made good use of my “car-pod” to make the photos, only getting out of the car where I could do so without tracking through the muck.
These photos are a few of the highlights of our visit. I’ve created a separate gallery on my Adobe Portfolio page for anyone who just needs to see more of The Enchanted Highway!
Truly enchanting! Thanks for sharing these fantastic works of art.
Thank you, Faye! Sunnier weather might have been preferred, but the gloom of the rain and snow made for an interesting and somewhat surreal atmosphere.
Now, that’s cool! I wish that I had taken the time to visit that area, but, to be honest, I was heading back to Minnesota and had had a few 12 – 14 driving days and I was plumb tuckered! 😀 . Maybe a return trip, with shorter drives is in order!
We tried to keep our days to a more sustainable 8-10 hours at the most, and we did the highway first thing in the morning. If it hadn’t been on the way we might not have done it. But we’re glad we did!