My West Coast Trip

My West Coast Trip

By Billy Payne ^

After spending the night in Niles, Mich, we traveled onto Gary, Ind. and then to Chicago. Here we toured Union Stock Yards on a tractor-drawn wagon. The buyers used the same wagon to go from pen to pen. As we were leaving Chicago, we passed Comisky Park and,O’Hare Airport. Continuing into Wisconsin, we stopped at a cheese house then on to the State Capitol building in Madison where we drove a round the building three timeslookingforaparking place, but failed to find one because there was an art exhibit on the Capitol grounds. We stopped for the night at LaCrosse, Wis. There was no pool at the motel, so we went swimming in the Mississippi River. The next day found us in Rochester, Minn, where we visited the Mayo Clinic Medical Museum. Later we visited the Libby McNeill canning plant. That day theywereprocessing peas. The peas wert picked and shelled by machinery in the field and sent to the cannery in dump trucks. We watched the entire process from the dump truck to cans of peas packed in cases. We crossed the state line into South Dakota and stayed at Sioux Falls that night. The following day we drove across South Dakota through the Badlands and on to Rapid City where we spent the night. We stopped early that day and got our motel then went to Terry Peak and rode the chair lift which was almost a mile long. When we reached the top we could look over into four state^ North Dakota, South Dakota; Montana and Wyoming. The next morning we headed for Mt. Rushmore, but stopped enroute at Marine Life where we saw otters, seals and porpoises. Later we visited the Reptile Gardens where we walked into a jungle of reptiles. We saw snakes, birds, horned toads, and a bat named Julius which had awingspread of three feet. Leaving the jungle we saw alligators and monkeys. We took pictures atMt. Rush more of the gigantic busts of presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt which are sculptured on the Black Hills. We next drove