Caching & Sightseeing In Rapid City 7/17/2010

We headed into Rapid City this morning seeing as it was the weekend and the traffic wouldn't be so bad to do some caching and sightseeing. Our first cache was across the road from the Madonna of the Prairie Monument on the way into the city and was on a guardrail. next was another cache down the road from that at the Hart Ranch Resort a private membership only campgrounds with 459 sites. Then we headed further into Rapid City and a cache at a recycling site, one behind a fire station and one in a shelter at a bus stop. Then we drove up on top of Skyline Drive (see pictures from the top of Skyline Dr.) for 2 caches the first was a monument to Mark McGough who was struck by lightening on the top of Skyline Dr. while watching the Westbury Trails Fire in 1988. The other cache was a Earthcache where we had to find some rocks and take a picture of them with our GPS and also take some pictures of the skyline.

Then it was off into downtown Rapid City for a cache at one of the local churches and then one located in a wooded area near some railroad tracks. Our last cache was located in a really unusual place in downtown called Art Alley and it is unlike any that I’ve ever strolled into. unlike any that I’ve ever strolled into.
It has an urban feel to it that seems to represent a direction in artworks that you don’t often see in the majority of the galleries in this area. There are no depictions of cowboys, buffalo, or the wide-open expanses of the great American west in this gallery.
This is, without a doubt, a totally post-modern art gallery, wherein one can view artworks that range from the total abstract, to pop art, to photo montage, installation art and skilled works that obviously found their origins in the passions of urban graffiti.
A few years ago Art Alley was a typical grungy alley like thousands of others. Its transformation began around 2002 when, as legend has it, a man named Todd Rigione move to Rapid City from California with his girl friend, Judy Looyenga (a native of Rapid City). The back stairway of their apartment looked out over the alley.
They decided to change their view beginning with painting pictures over graffiti on power poles. Soon others joined in and populist artwork spread up and down the alley.
Creative expression can surface anywhere, including in a back alley littered with dumpsters, power lines and stoops. I’ve stumbled through my share of alleyways, including the medieval alleys of old town Barcelona. But for true alleyway aficionados, Art Alley in Rapid City, South Dakota is the ultimate place to curl up in a doorway and swig booze out of a crumpled paper bag, while absorbing all the colorful and inspired chaos.
Art Alley is open to all who can wield a spray can, brush or broom. There are no art snobs, gallery owners or posers running the show and no fees. But like the open volunteer resource – Wikipedia – something inspired and useful emerges from all this chaotic and uncensored creativity.
The alley is continually changing as new inspiration overwrites the old. To view and uncover the previous art that now lays buried beneath layers of new art.


It really was interesting to walk the alley and see all the different kinds of art painted there. After we were done there it was off to the coach for the rest of the day. Well that's about all for today so until next time we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick