Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, SD

Porter Sculpture Park

Wayne Porter

Private property, open to the public

Just outside Sioux Falls SD, it's located directly next to I-90 at Exit 374. 

Take Exit 374 off of I-90 and go 1/2 mile South

Doug Weaver, my editor at Kansas City Star Books, showed me photos from his recent road trip to South Dakota, and I knew that this had to be a stop!  After realizing that Sturgis Harley Rally was beginning this weekend, Mount Rushmore has been tossed from the itinerary, and to me this is a much better  choice (ok, ok, I will go see the granite quartet, but another time...when I am not the only 4 wheeled vehicle on the road)

Now, they do charge a small admission, but  boy it is worth every penny to have a guided tour of over 40 enormous welded sculptures.  The crowning achievement must be the 60 ft Bull's Head (Egyptian Longhorn) made from railroad metal plates welded together, which you can walk inside of, be careful not to disturb the bats!  And wear your bug spray!

One of the things I noticed right off are the sounds...the rustle of the prairie grasses, the wind blowing through the holes in the Bull's Head...very peaceful.  Then I started to notice that at the beginning of the sculpture trail, the art is fairly light and whimsical...but as you travel through, it starts to get darker (and funnier).

From the highway , the Bull Head is the draw, you really don't think that the others will be as powerful, until you walk through the "exhibit" (which it truly has been artfully arranged, leading you from one story to another, with great attention to its setting in the landscape)

There is a self portrait of a kid sledding (after sunday school, tie still worn)  an apocalyptic jack-in-the-box with a rooster anouncing the new day, skeleton sentries guarding the Bull Head, a cracked goldfish bowl...almost 40 sculptures in all.