Herd About the Prairie

As the kids and I have been exploring our new city, we have been noticing some rather large and interesting canvases.  There are painted bison scattered throughout the city.  As my kids got more and more excited about them, I decided we had to do it.  We had to find them all.  And catalog our journey along the way.  First of all I had to do a little research.  What were the bison all about?  What's the background story and how can we find them all?  I thought for sure there would be a cataloging of all of them.  My SIL advised me to start at the Visitor's Bureau.  I gave them a call and they said that unfortunately they had an incomplete list, but the gal could email me what they had.  It was our start.  Another friend clued me in on a pinterest page dedicated to the herd.  I cross referenced both lists and found that there weren't any new on the pinterest page than what I had from the Visitor's Bureau.  Bummer.  But I jumped into mapquesting the sweet 16 I did have available.  I thought it'd be really fun to do a wham bam big adventure and find them all in one day.  However, just the drive time alone (not including buckling and unbuckling from carseats!) was over 1 1/2 hours.  Not gunna happen.  It was thus concluded that we'd find a few here and there whenever we had time, and whenever we were in a certain area.  That also made it more fun because different friends and family members could join us on our journey. 

A google search gave me a little bit of background information.
*Prairie Public Broadcasting made a documentary on the creation of these guys, called "Herd About the Prairie, A Virtual Art Stampede"
*Area Voices also posted a story from a local blogger about the bison and gave me a good bit of history, like:
     *The Arts Partnership commissioned 75 artists to participate in this (giving them a little money and 90 days to complete the project)
     *The bison debuted in 2006, at the Marathon - they were features along the route.  Then in the fall, they were moved to the Dome, where peopled lined up to see them all together.
     *The bison were then auctioned off and scattered about the prairie - from inside malls to someone's pasture, they are literally everywhere! 

The fun begins!