Now that my year of travel has slowed down (only one more trip to go this year), I am easing back into my studio to make things. (Perhaps someday there will be more “tierneycreates” posts vs. “tierneytravels” posts in the future…)

John and I are obsessed with U.S. National Parks and ended up visiting 6 this year (I’ve only blogged about 2 of them so far as I am quite behind in my travel posts – Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks) and when we redecorated our basement guest room we did it in a Colorado and National Parks theme (see post “Pieces of Colorado” Now Hung in the Guest Room):

What you can barely see in the image above is some of the art on the wall are framed pages from a book I found thrifting for $2.99 (retails for $34.99) of 63 of the iconic Anderson Design Group National Park Posters on individual pages:

Image Credit: Anderson Design Store website

I took this amazing 9″ x 12″ book apart and framed 16 or so of the 9″ x 12″ to use as art in the basement and in the stairwell leading to the basement.

So when during our trip to South Dakota we stopped at a quilt shop in downtown Rapid City, SD (see post A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD) and they had the Riley Blake Designs National Parks Poster Panel featuring miniature U.S. National Park Posters by the Anderson Design Group, I had to have it!

Image Credit: Riley Black Designs website

Instead of letting it gather dust in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection”, I decided this week to actually make it into a wallhanging and hang it 🙂

I decided to use strategically placed fusible web tape between the panel and the batting, and the batting and the backing to hold it all together for quilting instead of thread basting or pinning it:

Here the wallhanging hung in the stairwell from the 1st floor to the basement:

Here is a close up of some of the miniature U.S. National Park posters on the panel which mirror some of the posters I hung on the wall from the Anderson Group book I thrifted:

My machine quilting on this quilt was very simple – I followed the lines in the panel and outlined the individual states, the miniature posters, and the longitude and latitude lines. The finished wallhanging measures 33″ tall by 43″ wide.

Of course now the MANY other panels in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection” are envious of the National Parks Map panel as they would also love to be completed wallhangings and hung (or made into quilts). 😉

tierneytravels, U.S. National Parks

Crazy Horse Memorial

September 5, 2025September 6, 2025 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

While we were visiting South Dakota in July, we discovered that 17 miles or so down the road from Mount Rushmore (see my recent post Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype) is the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Since we were already in the area to see Mount Rushmore it made sense to see the Crazy Horse Memorial (which is a memorial in progress)!

According to Wikipedia:

“The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota, United States. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization.”

Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people. His most famous actions against the U.S. military included the Fetterman Fight (21 December 1866) and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25–26 June 1876). He surrendered to U.S. troops under General George Crook in May 1877 and was fatally wounded by a military guard, allegedly while resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members..”

Image credit: Crazy Horse 1842, nativepartnership.org

Before we took a bus to see the Crazy Horse Memorial in progress, we first stop at the Visitor Center and wandered around the Indian Museum of North America, “a large collection of art and artifacts reflecting the diverse histories and cultures of over 300 Native Nations.” (crazyhorsememorial.org/the-museums)

Then we got on the bus to travel to the Crazy Horse Memorial carving site which is on a private road.

Here are some of our photos from the site and I bet you can guess that the photos do not do the experience justice of seeing it in person, but unless I can teleport you all to the memorial this will have to do! 🙂

At the Visitor Center they had a model of what the completed memorial will look like someday:

As far as completion of the Crazy Horse Memorial – so far the head and left hand are completed; and according to Google AI:

“There is no definitive completion date for the Crazy Horse Memorial, and it is expected to take many more decades, with estimates suggesting a potential completion around 2037 for the horse’s head, arm, and hand, but the entire monument is considered a long-term project with no firm deadline, according to Summer Creek Inn and Wikipedia. The monumental scale and funding challenges, which rely on donations, have contributed to the lengthy construction time.”

I’d like to visit it when it is complete someday, it will be spectacular.

tierneytravels, U.S. National Parks

Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype

August 28, 2025October 26, 2025 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of our ambitious and kind of epic roadtrip to Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska, we stopped at Mount Rushmore National Monument in Keystone, South Dakota.

John had been there before I said it was a “must see”, I trusted him but I wondered if it was worth the hype.

It is worth the hype.

Carved from a section of the granite face of 5,725 feet (1745 meters) above sea level Mount Rushmore are the 60 foot tall figures of four former U.S. Presidents: George Washington (1789-1797), Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) and Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865). These four U.S. Presidents are very significant in U.S. History. (A full listing of U.S. Presidents by year if you are curious is at The Presidents Timeline website).

According to the U.S. National Park website: “…surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota, tell the story of the birth, growth, development and preservation of this country…”

Here was our view of the national monument when you first enter the park:

Actually when we first arrived it was very cloudy and misty and we couldn’t see anything on Mount Rushmore, and then it suddenly cleared to reveal an amazing view.

We walked through the State Flags of U.S. States and it was fun to try and locate the State Flags for states I lived in my lifetime: Pennsylvania (only briefly), New York, Washington, Oregon and Colorado.

After walking through the State Flags we walked down into the amphitheater area where very few visitors were (it felt like we had Mount Rushmore to ourselves compared to the busy upper areas) to spend time just looking at the Mount Rushmore National Monument.

It made us very reflective. After a while of sitting before these mammoth carvings it made us feel as if these four historical U.S. Presidents, each with major contributions, are looking over the U.S. today, watching.

I keep away from political discussions on my blog because I want to respect the different political opinions of others which stem from their life experiences and values, but I do want to share that we just started to wonder: “What would George Washington , Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln this of the U.S. today?. Would they be proud? Did the U.S. become what they hoped it would become?”

Not try to spur any political discussion, I just wanted to share some of our musings as we sat reverently and studied the monument.

After sitting with the monument we went back upstairs and visited the amazing museum exhbit that shared images, history and equipment from the carving/creation of Mount Rushmore October 4, 1927 – October 31, 1941. The exhibit shared photos of the workers who translated the vision of the the Chief Carver. (If you’d like to read the carving history of Mount Rushmore, which involved lots of dynamite see this link Carving History)

This placard in the exhibit particularly moved me:

To close out this post I just want to say that I like to imagine that the “Mount Rushmore Crew”: George Washington , Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are looking over the U.S. and are hopeful that it will transcend the current political situations and the “principles of liberty and freedom on which (the U.S.) was founded” will prevail.

tierneytravels, U.S. National Parks

Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks

August 25, 2025August 25, 2025 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As I mentioned in the posts A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD and Carhenge, in July we ventured on an ambitious and kind of epic roadtrip to Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska, some of our neighboring (and sort of neighboring) states to Colorado.

Since John retired, we are trying to see as many of the U.S. National Parks as possible over the next couple of years (and who knows what kind of funding they will have in the future to host visitors, their have already been serious cuts to National Park staff); as we feel they are some of the best parts of the U.S.

So during our roadtrip while in South Dakota traveling from Rapid City, South Dakota we stopped briefly at Wind Caves National Park; and then spent a large part of the day at Badlands National Park.

Badlands National Park

Whatever images I share they will not do justice to the magnificence of this National Park.

As the park’s website states: “The rugged beauty of the Badlands draws visitors from around the world. These striking geologic deposits contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds. Ancient horses and rhinos once roamed here. The park’s 244,000 acres protect an expanse of mixed-grass prairie where bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs, and black-footed ferrets live today.”

First we stopped at the Visitor Center so we could get our National Park Passport stamped for Badlands National Park and pick up some souveniers.

Here are some of the amazing rock formations outside the Visitor Center and a section that John was brave enough to climb up:

After this initial stop we got on the Badlands Loops Road (Highway 240) and drove through the park. Here are some of the zillion photos as we made our way along the road.

As I mentioned whatever images I share they will not do justice to the magnificence of this National Park. Checking my photos after I took them and already anticipating the disappointment (ha!) I decided to take a video at one of the many glorious viewpoints on our drive through the park.

As I was about to take my video I cleverly (not so cleverly perhaps) decided to narrate the video using the placards (? not sure if that is the right term) at the viewpoint describing the view. Here is an example of a “placard”:

They were rather weather worn and difficult to read but once I started my narration I was kind of committed to complete it.

So here is the video, which I uploaded to YouTube in order to post, with my very monotone voice as I attempted to take the video and read the whole line of different “placards” before other people showed up at the viewpoint and blocked my view or wondered what the heck the crazy lady speed reading the “placards” was doing!

By the way it is VERY WINDY in the Badlands and the wind provides a soundtrack to my monotone awkward narration – ha!

Perhaps my lame videography provided you with a tiny bit better sense of the awesomeness of the Badlands.

Wind Cave National Park

Not much to report on this National Park. Unless you take one of the Park Ranger guided tours of a section of the Wind Caves there isn’t much to see. The wait for the guided tours was a couple hours. So we just looked around the Visitor Center, got some souveniers and got our National Park Passport stamped. We were wondering why it was free to get into the park and that is because you pay when you sign up for one of the tours.

In the Visitor Center they did have a cool diagram of the cave system.

So that’s our South Dakota National Park adventure!

We were tempted to pop over the Theodore Roosevelt National Park but it was quite a bit away and we’d already been to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial on the trip so far (next post).

Postscript

After I posted this post I discovered that John had taken a video on his phone also at Badlands National Park at the same viewpoint but without the narration. His video shows more of the 180+ view so I uploaded it to YouTube if you’d like to see it also. (Sorry it only has the wind as soundtrack no monotonous voice!)