Breakfast at Bully's

Presidents are a big deal in Rapid City. Bronze statues of greet pedestrians in the historic district. At Mount Rushmore, Teddy Roosevelt may literally be in the shadow of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, but he is remembered with exceeding warmth in town. Bully Blends Coffee & Tea Shop is a case in point.


For breakfast I had an excellent Bullrito. Offering a half portion was a fine idea because it allowed me to rationalize the purchase of a dangerous Bullrownie. (You can't be too careful when venturing out across the high plains.) Everything is made in house and the staff is gracious to a fault.

Granite Faces in the Black Hills

A Glass of Your Own

Barely Blond might describe the woman behind the bar or the draft she drew from the keg. Tonight the Firehouse Brewery had five of their own craft brews on tap. The jolly couple to my right proposed the Blond and Megan, the bartender, seconded the motion. Barely Blond was a voluptuous ale: great body with Eastern European hop sass. If I were a local, I would have enjoyed it in my own numbered glass.

Sullivan's Brontosaurus

Jurassic Park reinvented dinosaurs. Before Steven Speilberg brought them back to life, however, they were dusty skeletons in natural history museums or Emmit Sullivan sculptures in South Dakota's Dinosaur Park.

Dimetrodon


Sullivan rendered tail dragging, reptilian behemoths life size in concrete over steel mesh and then painted them bright green. Today they look cartoonish, but I suspect that has more to do with what has happened to dinosaurs over the seven decades which have passed since Sullivan and his WPA crew were at work.



The fate of two iconic dinosaurs, brontosaurus and trachodon, tells part of the story. They were demoted. Brontosaurus has been reclassified as Apatosaurus; Trachodon is now Hadrosaurid. Both were the creations of early bone hunters. Later research has shown they were cobbled together from two or more creatures. But they captured the imagination and became real for generations of enthusiasts.

Trachodon and Brontosaurus


Paleontologists have a much deeper understanding of dinosaurs now than they did in Sullivan's time. The closest living relatives of dinosaurs, we are told, are birds, not reptiles. Most probably were not green; they probably did not drag their tails. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they were survivors and ruled the planet for over 100 million years. Only recently did we learn their tenure was abruptly terminated when the Earth collided with a very large rock (estimated to be about the size of Mount Everest) 63 million years ago. Otherwise, they might still be in charge.

Stegosaurus


None of that serious scholarship detracts from the charm of the Dinosaur Park. Sullivan's sculptures will continue to inspire. Kids at least. Riding Triceratops beats peering at presidents on Mount Rushmore any day.

T. Rex and Triceratops