Since we were road-tripping through the Dakotas last week, we had to stop at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, SD.

People like to make a fuss about the Stradivarius guitars and the miniature pipe organs on display there. But the National Music Museum also has a luthier’s workshop.

Wild experimental violins like this alien-looking Stauffer model.

And exquisite Norwegian Hardanger fiddles (which remind me, of course, of the haunting Rohan theme from The Two Towers–a particularly memorable example of what a Hardanger fiddle can do).

Vermillion, South Dakota: where music lovers get to geek out.