Stuff You Should Know - What's the deal with sinkholes?

Episode Date: June 8, 2010

Recently, a massive sinkhole opened up in Guatemala City, swallowing a three-story building in the process. In this episode, Josh and Chuck explore sinkholes and the forces that cause them, natural and otherwise. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is sponsored by Teamistry, an original podcast from Atlassian, makers of collaboration software like Jira, Trello, and Confluence. Teamistry is an award-winning podcast whose new season, Making an Impossible Airplane, the untold story of the Concorde, is about the supersonic passenger jet that could fly so fast you could make it from New York to Paris in half the time it takes today. In six parts, Teamistry does a deep dive into this phenomenal airplane that was an engineering marvel. Search for Teamistry in your podcast player to hear Making an Impossible Airplane, the untold story of the Concorde, and thanks to Teamistry for their support.

With one of the best savings rates in America, banking with Capital One is the easiest decision in the history of decisions, even easier than deciding to listen to another episode of Stuff You Should Know. And with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts, is it even a decision? Get started today. It only takes about five minutes to open an account with Capital One, and there's no minimum to open and keep your account. That's banking reimagined. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank. CapitalOneNA member FDIC. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chaz Bryant. That makes this Stuff You Should Know. That's why it's K. You realize if we release every week the five minutes before we podcast, we could make money on that. Especially if we send it to the Benny Hill Music. That is the gold. This is the silver. Yeah. I would call that the platinum and this the gold. Okay. How about that? Sure. Just to be contrary though. Just no bronze. Those guys are losers. Bronze medal winners. Yeah. Third place. Bronze. I don't even know why you'd like bring it home. Just leave it on the plane in that little magazine pocket in front of you. Chuck. Yes. I know that you have been to Guatemala, and I know that you know I've

been to Guatemala too. Jerry's been there, and we learned pretty quickly that Guatemala has it hard, but we also learned that translated into English from I think Spanish, Guatemala means God's whipping post. I thought you were going to say land of many sinkholes. That's just one of the many problems facing Guatemala. Okay. Yeah. We talked extensively about mudslides, about civil war, just about all these problems that Guatemala has, and this past week, this past weekend, Guatemala faced even more problems. Last week, there was a volcanic eruption, a volcano like 20 clicks south of Guatemala City, started raining ash down, and then incomes Hurricane Agatha from the Pacific, I think,

to get rid of all the ash, but flood the area, create mudslides, kill 180 people, awful. And then getting to the point of this podcast, hasten a major sinkhole that's almost unbelievable looking in the middle of Guatemala City. Yeah. All our Facebook lit up with fans saying, have you seen this sinkhole picture? Yeah. It looks photoshopped. Yeah, it does. It looks completely fake. It is 66 feet across, 20 meters, and almost 100 feet deep, but when you look at it, it looks like the very gates of hell have opened up. Yeah. It looks, and considering there's a building in there. Yeah. And that you can't even see. It swallowed a three-story apartment building. Yeah. Well, no, it was a factory. Oh, was it? Yeah, it was a clothing

factory, and they said that the guys who work there, the people who work there, left at six in the afternoon, an hour before the earth opened up. Wow. So they got out, and then there's some security guard, too, that had a schedule altered earlier that day, so he wasn't there. This is just like that church group that everybody in the 50s, everybody showed up late to this church choir practice, and for all these different reasons, like all 12 or 15 people were delayed in getting to the practice, and the church happened to catch fire, and had they all gotten there on time, they would have burned to death. Wow. One imagines. At the very least, it would have had to have gotten out of the church.

Good fortune. Yeah. So, well, I guess maybe God does like Guatemala a little. Maybe so, Josh. Maybe he just doesn't overtly hate it like we thought. Yeah. This St. Cole was, like you said, Saturday, and three miles from a similar St. Cole from what was it, 2007? Yeah. Yeah. The residents have been complaining of all of the signs of St. Cole's developing, one happening two years earlier. That's a pretty big sign. Yeah. But then there's also creaking noises, the pavement isn't exactly perfectly flat. Right. There's been slight tremors, maybe? Yeah. I think they said in the 07 one, which FYI was 330 feet deep, and it appeared instantly, almost instantly, killing at least three people, and like swallowed up homes. They said that they

felt the ground shaking a month before it appeared, and that at the time, the government was going to send down like a robotic camera. But it's Guatemala, so they were like, where do we get a robotic camera? So, it never happened. Yes. That is a good point, Chuck. It's kind of an evil point, but it's a good point, right? Yeah. So, we're talking about St. Cole's here. This one's not about tropical storms, hurricanes, mudslides. Right. Oh, we should mention, though, that our friends at Coed in Guatemala are all okay. They sent word, and we posted on Facebook that they weren't affected, and everyone's doing fine down there. Awesome. Okay. Okay. So, we're good. So, what's the deal with the St. Cole, Josh? Well, it depends on who you ask, Chuckers.

One of our fellow colleague co-workers over at Discovery News got a Michael Riley had a blog post that interviewed a Guatemalan-based geologist who's like, do not call that a St. Cole. That is not a St. Cole. Yeah. And he's like, well, what would you call it? And he said, I would call it a piping feature. And I'm pretty sure the guy made that term up. I think he did, too. We did a Google search for piping feature, and it brought up a description of pajamas, baseball uniform, has something to do with email, possibly. And that's it. There's no geological feature, formation, or happening that's called a piping feature. So, this guy was like, don't call a St. Cole. Let's all call it this term that I just made up. Well, that's how you

coined a term, my friend. It is, but I don't think you need to be using Michael Riley's blog to do it. At the very least, you say, and I just made that up. Yeah. Anyway, man-made St. Cole is what I think it is. Right. Well, what he was talking about, though, was that the bedrock under Guatemala is actually old volcanic deposits. Right. And usually with St. Cole, what you're talking about is a different kind of bedrock that's actually bedrock. It's not volcanic. It wasn't just deposited there by something spewing it. Yeah. And you have things like limestone, dolomite. Yeah. My favorite mineral. Basalt. Yeah. Wait, how did we ever come up with how to say that? I think it's basalt. One of those, too. Gypsum. Yeah. The carbonate or what's the

other? Evaporate. Evaporate classes of rocks, right? Yes. That is typically what is underneath what's called the overburden. And the overburden is just the soil that's on top of all that. Right. So, for those of you who've never tried this, if you go out in your backyard and dig a hole, eventually you're going to run out of dirt and you're going to hit rock. Yeah. And when you run out of dirt, you can say, I have dug through the overburden and have now made contact with the bedrock. Right. Yeah. And the reason we mention all this is because that's how sinkhole forms. At least this type of sinkhole. You have to go dig it up. Yeah, exactly. The bedrock underneath the overburden, it gets whittled away by water that's turned acidic from absorbing CO2 and interacting

with plants. So, it carves out little conduits, little pathways of sort of like an underwater stream almost. Right. Very much like that. And then it loosens the soil and then the soil starts to fall down in these cracks. And although the surface and the overburden may look okay up top, this is why they seem to happen like overnight. There's just a lot going on underneath that we don't see. Right. For weeks, months, years, you know, eons, that kind of thing. So, when the water whittles away, say a chamber, the future sinkhole, which you can also call a cave. Right. When you're going caving, what you're doing is walking through basically a dry conduit sinkhole system. Yeah. Right. Good point. So, when the sinkhole is formed, right, whittle away by water. Right. And the

overburden starts spilling into it, which is called spalling. Yeah, not spilling. It's spalling. Right. That means that there is much less of it above. It's like an hourglass basically. Yeah. Right. And then when somebody walks on it, drives on it, builds a building on it. Yes. That salt, what appeared to be solid is now in the bottom of this hole. Yeah. And oftentimes, it can, what I call it, the overburden is solid enough to hold up, even though it might be hollow underneath, it can hold up for a little while if nothing is on it. Right. But like you said, the problem comes when something is planted on top of it like a car. Right. And that's actually called a cover collapse sinkhole. And that's what we think of it for sinkholes, these really

dramatic, sudden, holy cow sinkholes. Yeah. I would like to call it the coolest sinkhole, but since, you know, it might seem people do die. Yeah. Exactly. Chuck, there's two other kinds of sinkholes, right? That are slightly less dramatic. Yeah. The cover, cover, subsidence sinkhole. Yeah. This is, this is possibly the least dramatic sinkhole, basically. Kind of boring. It is. This is a very similar process happens, except you get the impression it happens much more slowly, right? Yeah. Chuck was talking about, imagine like a straw coming into, you know, this little nitrous oxide tubes, the little chargers. Yeah. For like, for the little industrial arts cars that you made. Sure. Or making whipped cream or whatever, you know. Right. You got a

straw going into one of those and a straw coming out. So it's like narrow, narrow, fat, narrow again. Yeah. That would be like conduit, sinkhole or cave, because it's pretty much a cave until the top collapses. Right. And then conduit again. Right. So these conduits allow water to go in and out, but as spalling occurs, the dirt, the sediment, the overburden, the soil spills into the loose parts, right? Right. And it can clog up the conduits. Right. Yeah. So what you have then for the cover subsidence sinkhole is basically just a depression in the earth. Yeah. But a dirt depression. And a lot of times they're not very big either. We're talking like a few feet. Right. Deep and across. One of the ways to deal with a sinkhole, a small one is to fill it with sand

and boom, bang, bam. Yeah. That's what the Florida management district says. And Florida's kind of lousy with sinkholes because of all the sand. Right. But these cover subsidence sinkholes often turn into ponds because brain water starts collecting. It has nowhere to go because the conduits are blocked and bam, you get yourself a brand spanking new pond. And that's good fission. Yes, it is. I imagine. And then the third one, Chuck, a dissolution or solution sinkhole. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Not spilling, spalling, dissolution or solution sinkhole. Right. It's a geology. It's like, take your pick. Yeah. These are actually not as dramatic either. And that's usually if you just have like a thin

overburden that washes away and erodes over time. And it exposes the bedrock. Yeah. Exposes. I always want to say twitch, twitch after you say bedrock each time from the Flintstones. Remember that? No. You're like Flintstones. I mean, I remember the Flintstones and they lived in bedrock, but what's the twitch? The one episode where they had the movie star singer come to town. Tony Kurt Rock or whatever. Yeah. And that was a song in bedrock, twitch, twitch. Yeah. I don't remember that one. Wow. Wow. Showing my age. I like the one with the Ann Margrock. She was a hot cartoon. Yeah. It's so funny that all the names were like rock oriented. I never figured that one out because they lived in the Stone Age. Just kidding. Okay.

But the big rack of ribs on the car that tipped the car over, that was normal. That was a brontosaurus rib rack. Yeah. That's good eating. That's what they ate in the Stone Age. Yes. So like you said, you can get a new pond when you have a dissolution sinkhole. Is that where we were? Yeah. You can get a pond from that too. Basically, the difference between a cover subsidence and a dissolution sinkhole is one is possibly grassy. Right. The other is exposed rock. Right. Right. So a grassy depression. But both can be ponds. Both of them have their conduits covered. Right. Really, when you think a sinkhole, the one we're talking about is the cover collapse. Oh my God, save me sinkhole. Right. Yeah. So we need to talk about human

beings and what we can do. There's actually, you know, a lot of those are naturally occurring sinkholes just because of erosion. But humans can actually contribute to sinkholes in a lot of ways. Yeah. I mean, think about it. We talked about reservoir induced seismicity. Yeah. Same deal. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Totally. We are really screwing with the geophysical properties of Mother Earth. Yeah. I'm constantly amazed every time I go to New York, that New York is still like a standing functioning city. For now. Yeah. Well, that's true. But yeah, let's hope it keeps standing for at least the next week. Yeah, exactly. Drilling, Josh, mining, foot traffic, vehicle traffic, increased water flow, broken pipes. The other

thing that, you know, we talked about humans causing an earthquake, extracting water from the subsurface. That can be a big problem. Yeah. Causing holes. Yeah. So that's how man, those are just a few ways that man can create one basically. Yes. And that's what they think happened in Guatemala, right? Yeah. Basically, with plumbing, we have the same problem here in Atlanta. I'm a little nervous to admit. Yeah. Our sewer system is like 100 years old. Guatemala cities is not too much older, you know, or younger. It's right about the same age. So a sewer pipe bursts, right? And you think, well, okay, this is very bad. It erodes the soil because of the water movement. Not just that. It provides a double whammy, actually. It erodes the dirt,

and it actually gives it a place to be carried away through. Is that flow reversal? No. No. That's right. A very sewer pipe. Oh, okay. So imagine a sewer pipe, and then bam, it bursts, and there's a big hole there. Yeah, yeah. The spewing water, the water pressure is just eroding soil above it, right? And it's eroding the overburden. And then it's also, this big hole in the pipe is giving a place for the soil to be taken away. Right. So it's eroding it, taking it away, creating a cavern, then bam. And that's, yeah, that's exactly what happened in Guatemala City both times. Well, actually, I mean, I read today they said they still aren't sure what happened in this most recent one. I'm saying that's what happened in Guatemala City both times. Okay. They said the

guys said we have to descend into it to find out what happened. The guy who called it a piping feature? No, it was some other guy that you like better. Okay. Let's talk about Polk County, Florida. Yeah, I think we should. That was a human caustic hole. And here's what's going on in Florida. You know when you use fertilizer in your yard, which isn't anything you'd like to do? Yeah. It's got phosphate in it, and about 30% of the entire world's phosphate stash comes from Florida. So the problem with this stuff is it's radioactive, mildly radioactive. And so Florida said, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to stack it up in huge stacks. So it's all in one place. And we're talking hundreds of acres, millions of tons.

The result years later in 1994 in central Florida, a billion tons of it basically created a sinkhole. The weight crushed the sand underneath it and created a huge sinkhole. Right. Yeah. Florida is already what's known as a karst region. And karst region is it's a type of topography. Yeah. K-A-R-S-T. Yes. Yes. And if you want to see some cool video on a karst, on karst regions, check out watersheds.org slash earth slash karst. Right. Awesome. Yeah, really cool. And karst region is basically it's a type of topography that features a lot of caverns, sinkholes, springs, all this geological, these geological features created by the movement of water. Right. Florida's lousy with this stuff. Oh, yeah. But then as you were saying,

it had this extra added benefit of billions of tons of phosphogips. Of radioactive byproducts. And then bam, yeah. And in that one collapse in 1994 in Polk County, the stuff collapsed into the water supply. Yeah, that was bad news. And polluted the entire state supply. Yeah. That's not good. Well, it's not good. But I mean, if I'm going to go silver lining here, which I'm not one to do, it did make them all take a hard look at how they dispose of harmful byproducts. Right. They're like, you can't just stack it up until it falls through the earth. They're like, well, what should we do? Right. And they're still trying to answer that one. Yeah. So it took a lot of money and time though to clean up their water supply.

Yeah. And Chuck, let's get in our balloon and go over to Bears and Ski Russia. We haven't been in our balloon in a long time. I know. It's got a little dusty. You need to clean up in here. I know. There's a dead raccoon in the corner. That's creepy. Yeah. Don't look at it. And so in Bears and Ski, Bears and this Berezniki, Berezniki. Yes. Yeah. I almost took us to Berezniki. Jeez. That was close. We're going to Berezniki Russia in I think 1986. They had another fertilizer related sinkhole problem, right? Potash. Potash. It's actually pot. Pot. That's what the lady said on the pronunciation guide.

Really? She said potash. She's a robot. That's what we're going with. Yeah. 656 feet deep, 260 feet long, 131 feet wide and growing. So for our non-American, non-Liberian, and then what, Burma maybe? Sure. Sure. That would be 200 meters deep, 80 meters long and 40 meters wide. That's a huge sinkhole. And the reason was they were just removing potash. Potash. Potash from the ground through mine and it became flooded and that was that. Question. Do sinkholes always cause massive destruction and kill people and swallow buildings? Yes. No. Not true. They're actually, a lot of times,

are just kind of like an annoyance and an inconvenience. The ones you can fill with sand. Right. Or ones that aren't around, you know, an urban civilized area. Yeah. Like if they're out in the boonies, it's kind of cool. Like really cool if we're talking about the ones in Venezuela, the sorry, sorry, nama sinkholes. Did you see those things? I saw this picture of them. Yeah. Well, I didn't mean literally have you descended into them? No, no. But those are really cool because those are in the Tapui region, these really high maces. Basically, it's like at the top of a mountain, you'll just see a forest, dense forest, and then these huge, perfectly round holes.

You get like a thousand feet deep. Yeah. 305 meters deep. And these crazy dudes. And they're right in the center. Oh yeah. Yeah. These crazy dudes like put on parachutes and jump into them. That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. They did on the planet earth. Actually, I don't think it was there, but did you ever watch that? The planet earth discovery thing? Yes. They gave us that when they bought us as a gift. Yeah. It was really cool, but it has the base jumpers jumping into these things. It's crazy. That's awesome. They also have a cenotes. Yeah. Did you see those in Tulum?

Yes. Because they got a lot of them down there, right? Yes, they do. They're everywhere in Tulum and they're awesome. So basically that is a sinkhole that is now a pool, right? Yeah. And for some reason, there's, I guess, the water collects, it percolates down from the top. So there's always a dripping sound. Okay. And then it collects in the bottom of the sinkhole, usually bedrock or light sediment. But during the percolation process, it becomes purified. So it's this incredible, like bluish water that's totally pure.

Big for snorkeling, right? Gorgeous. Yeah. Huge for snorkeling, stupid diving, that kind of thing. And they're also very sacred places, I guess, among the Maya maybe. And there's like a big movement to preserve these cenotes, because they were believed to be a portal to the next world. Oh, really? And so they'd like sacrifice people and stuff there. They are wicked cool looking. Yeah. I plan to go one day. Okay. And tread the ground that you tread in Tulum. There is also a lot of the ruins around on the Yucatan, or we'll have a cenote.

Well, they have ruins near Tulum, right? Uh-huh. And then Chuck, lastly, probably the biggest sinkhole on the planet is the Katara Depression, right, in Egypt. It's like 300 feet deep, or 436, yes, 436 feet, 131 meters deep. Size of Lake Erie, basically. Yeah, but it's like 75 miles wide, which is 120 kilometers. Yeah, it's not, I kind of expect more. Did you see pictures? It looks sort of, just looks like a desert basin, sort of. Yeah. I thought it's not nearly as cool looking as the ones in Venezuela.

No. And if you want to see a cool picture of the ones in Venezuela, you can type sinkhole into howstuffworks.com. There's also a cool flash animation on page zero. Yeah, that's a good one. Of how sinkholes form, and really to sum up, sinkholes form because water moves underground, erodes the overburden above, cabam. There you have it. Yep. Okay. And I think I said handy search bar at howstuffworks.com, right? You did. If not, I just did, which means it's time for Listener Mint. Yes, Josh, serial killers. I just need to say, judging from the Facebook and fan reaction, that we have a sick and twisted audience. I thought it was funny that a lot of people

felt the need to be like, you know, not to be morbid or anything, but I really love Serial Coach. Everybody loves Serial Killers. It's very intriguing. It's okay, just go with it. Before I read these, Josh, I should just point out a quick correction. Ted Bundy did his final sorority house actions at Florida State, not Florida. Okay. And I knew that too. I don't know why I said UF. Yeah, I thought it was Florida the whole time. I'm not a big Florida Gator fan, as you know. No, I know. But I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. Thank you. We heard from a bunch of people, Josh kind of jokingly said, if you know of any serial killers,

turns out a bunch of people have come into contact with these guys. A surprising amount, yes. And so I have a bunch of them I'm going to run down. You want to read some of these too? Oh, sure. I'll give you that page. Okay. This is from Solomon. My mom told me a story when she was in Washington in the late 70s. She graduated college, moved there to work as a social worker in Seattle. She was supposed to meet up with a friend one day and co-worker and her roommate, and they waited for hours and hours, but they never showed. She spoke to her co-worker later and said the reason she never came because her friend was missing. Turns out, long story short,

that she went to help a guy with a sailboat in the parking lot, Buffalo Bill Style. Can't help me get this couch in the van. She got there and there was no sailboat, and it turns out that this guy was Ted Bundy, and the friend was Janice Ott, one of his final victims. Wow. This is from Solomon. All right, I've got a good one. This is my favorite. This is from Justin. My grandfather once knew a serial killer. They were in the same fantasy baseball league. I do not know his name, unfortunately. He was kicked out of the league for cheating, and his family left him. So he resorted to shooting people in the head with a pistol.

The police had him cornered in a motel, so he covered himself in baseball cards and committed suicide. That's from Justin. I don't know about that one, Justin. It's the very least Justin has a great imagination. Yes, this one comes from Karen H. Just a tidbit, guys. My aunt's first husband was a coroner on the Manson murders Tate Labianca. I never met him because they divorced before I was born, but my aunt always talked about him during the murders. Her ex-husband also founded the Los Angeles Coroner's Gift Shop. I thought that was strange. Strange and awesome, kind of. The Gift Shop, at least. This one's from Megan. Just wanted to tell you that my stepdad's brother murdered two people.

They were my stepdad's friends. My stepdad recounted always feeling a little odd around his brother. He said the hair on his arms and neck would rise when his brother would talk to him. His brother used to catch sparrows as a child and shove firecrackers into their butts and let them go after he lit them, which is pretty awful. Thanks, Megan. Yeah, that's part of the McDonald Triad, I would say. Two quickens here on Jeffrey Dahmer. Apparently, he had a bunch of neighbors that listened to our show. Joel says, around the time of the killings, my mom lived next door to Jeffrey Dahmer. She met him twice and she said he seemed like a nice guy, but a little weird. I would say so. Anyway, just thought I would share my little anecdote with you guys. Joel.

And from Cole in Cincinnati says, my father went to preschool with Jeffrey Dahmer. He doesn't remember him torturing small animals or anything, but one fact sticks out. He liked to walk around with his cheeks sucked in, my dad said. Picture someone making a fishy face. My dad's theory was that Jeffy was sating his taste for human flesh, but that's pure speculation. Wow, that is pure speculation. Thanks for that. Check out a couple more if that's okay with you. Yes. There's one from Anonymous in Florida who wanted to give the attention to the victim and not take any for herself. I went to high school with a girl who became the victim of a serial killer known as the Gainesville Ripper, Danny Rowling. I wasn't close friends with her, but she

was in my freshman English honors class. So that's from Anonymous. Kurtz lived eight minutes away from Dennis Rader's home, the BTK killer, and the house where he murdered one of his victims is across the street from the hardware shop where I shop. And it turns out BTK, Dennis Rader, murdered more than three people over the course of his career. Still kind of a poo poo serial killer career in my opinion. Did we just say three? I said three. I was poo pooing him. You got any more? I got one more. Go ahead. Back in 1968, my dad's best friend's family was targeted by the Zodiac killer. We recently met up with her daughter and she told us the story that one of her relatives, David Arthur Faraday, was killed by Mr. Zodiac and the fear

of someone else being killed caused them to leave California, which meant my dad lost contact with her. Thanks for the podcast and fully expect you to release new episodes even after you are dead. That's slightly disturbing. It was, especially in relation to the Zodiac killer. And especially since it was written by our own Jerry. Yeah, it was, wasn't it? I got one more. This is from Leslie and Leslie has Josh known three murderers. Wow. And she's still around. The first person, Robert Bennett, AKA the handcuff man, who I think was caught in Atlanta. He lived just across the street from me in Tawanda, Pennsylvania. And we used to sneak through the alley beside his house to get to school. And we would sneak into his pool. Yeah. Dangerous business. Yes, it is. Second

was Eric Smith, a kid from Sonoma, New York, who murdered a four year old boy. His grandfather was my science teacher and a family friend. And finally, the most recent murderer I've known was Mesak Damas, who murdered his family here in Naples. I worked with him for a while at a restaurant and knew his wife from the grocery store where I shop. And that's from Leslie. So she's known three murderers and good for her. Leslie, um, keep your eyes peeled. That's what I want to remain on point. I've never known anybody who's known that many murderers before. And I'm surprised. Um, Chuck tag teaming listener mail makes me feel like Michelle Norris and Robert Siegel. Okay. Uh, and it's Thursday even. So like the whole NPR thing's

really going on. Wow. Um, check us out on Facebook. It's a stuff you should know website in parentheses. We're also on Twitter, S Y S K podcast. And, uh, if you want to send us an email about anything at all, just wrap it up and ship it off to stuff podcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Want more how stuff works? Check out our blogs on the house of works.com homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you you ready to travel in 2023? And since 1981, Gait one travel has been providing more of the world for less. Let Gait one handle the planning for you with affordable escorted tours in European

River Cruises. And right now through January 30th, use promo code heart 20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code heart 20 through January 30th. Visit gait one travel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's gate the number one travel.com. Once again, use promo code heart 20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. The South Dakota stories, volume three. It was my first time traveling alone. Packed my car with hiking boots, a camera, and my dog Randy. I don't know what I was searching for. Maybe it was something new with adventure. Maybe it was the idea of vacation I would never expect. Filled with wildlife, national parks, rivers, whatever it was I set out to find, it was all there and more.

Because there's so much South Dakota, so little time.