OK, last week we took off from Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) and everything was going fine until a woman in our row passed out an hour into the flight. She slumped over in her seat and the two women around her yelled for a doctor. The Southwest flight attendants sprang into action and they had oxygen and a defribrillator there in seconds. By some miracle, a doctor was sitting right behind the unconscious woman. He was wonderful–so soothing and caring. After a few minutes I was very relieved to see she was breathing again.

But she still wasn’t herself, so the pilot made an emergency landing at the Columbus, Ohio airport. We could overhear her seatmate calling the woman’s husband. Can you imagine getting that call? “You don’t know me, but I’m on the plane with your wife who was just taken in an ambulance to the hospital nearest the Columbus airport. No, I don’t know the name of it.” Her poor husband was waiting for her in St. Louis. I felt so sorry for both of them and hope she’s OK.

We took off again and landed in St. Louis, then Denver, where I took this shot with my iPhone. I liked the light and angles and the lone figure at the top of the escalator.

Our next stop was South Dakota. Yes, you heard me right. I’m guessing most of you have never heard of the place. 🙂 It’s actually quite beautiful, especially the western part, where we landed.

You know you’re not in the D.C. area anymore when the guy in front of you is wearing this:

Rapid City is the gateway to the Black Hills, and we used it as our base for sightseeing there and the Badlands. I’ll get to those in future posts.
In Rapid City, you’ll see things like. . .

beautiful old architecture from the early 1900s

a fire station converted to a brewery and restaurant

a beautiful doorway

a postwar bungalow with a flag painted on the roof

an exact replica of the Borgund Stavkirke in Laerdal, Norway, that’s beautiful from the front

and back

and inside.

The view from the chapel is pretty nice too. . . .

There’s also a log cabin that houses lots of Norwegian artifacts brought over by settlers.

Finally, there’s a store called Prairie Edge. There are so many interesting things inside, I’m devoting Wednesday’s blog to it.

See you then!

{carole}