The Black Hills of South Dakota.

The Black Hills are a wonderful treasure. They are worth a week's visit just for themselves and the surrounding area. There are National Parks and State Parks and private facilities that bring the place alive. The scenery is beautiful and rich rewarding experience awaits. One of the attractions I did not get to see was in the town of Deadwood. They filmed some of the HBO series in town and every day they have a gun fight during the summer. And they have a few casinos and I could hear some of the slot machines calling my name, I was either too tired when I drove through town or it was very early in the morning on my way to another part of the area. Definitely worth a return visit.

I stayed in a KOA Kampground Kabin. It was supposed to be in a tent site but the weather prediction was for severe thundershowers during the day and into the evening. I am glad I took the cabin. It poured so hard during the day while I was driving that I could barely see 20 feet in front of me on the Interstate. It was an eerie feeling watching everyone slow down on the Interstate at the same time. I am glad they did and it was safer driving than stopping because it was so hard to see another car but eerie just the same. And I am sure the tent would have suffered mightily in that down pour. Later that night it rained so hard that it woke me up due to the sound of the hard rain on the roof of the cabin. I can only imagine what it would have been like trying to sleep in a tent during the storm. Unfortunately the weather man got that storm correct.

While driving to the campground, I passed Bridal Veil Falls. Not as high as their name sake at Yosemite Park, but a very nice falls along the side of the road. The geology is interesting in the Black Hills. The rock fractures in a rounded shape in many places so it looks like castle walls with round towers.

Along with the general geology of the Black Hills the main reason for my stopping there was to see Abe Lincoln on Mt. Rushmore. I have a bit of amount of time studying Abe and the Civil War. One of the main reasons that I started to look into driving across country was to be able to see Abe carved in granite while the other parts of the journey began as secondary, they have not remained that for long.

Mount Rushmore is quite impressive. There are a couple of ways to get to the site, but one of the more impressive ways is travel from the south threw a series of 3 tunnels to get there. You get a nice view from the first and third tunnels to build the anticipation of getting to the actual site. I met a very fast chipmunk at the stop after the third tunnel. It skittered about from rock to rock and then came up to my feet to check out the cracker on the side walk before skittering away again.

My first visitof the day was a little after noon. I returned for the evening program, after the hard rains and you can see the difference in the faces when the granite is wet. I think George Washington's face is especially amusing when wet. Before the wet t-shirt George is the setting sky sun over Mt Rushmore. The sky never got red above the Presidents so I had to take a picture off to the side that showed the most color.

The next stop was out of the Black Hills across the Interstate in a town called Belle Fourche and the geographic center of the United States - one of the attractions I originally found on the map, but reinforced by the RoadsideAmerica.com web site. It was an interesting stop as there is a museum of the local county at the same location and they have the first cabin built in the county there as well. But probably not worth the drive through a death defying thunder storm, but who knew.

Before going back to Mount Rushmore I made a stop at the Crazy Horse site. This is where a former assistant of the Mount Rushmore team was hired by the Indian Tribes to carve an American Indian icon into the granite cliffs of the Black Hills to showcase their heroes, culture and history. The 4 presidents carved into Mount Rushmore are 60 feet high and took 14 years to carve. Crazy Horse's head is higher than 60 feet and all four of the Mount Rushmore presidents would fit into the single head of Crazy Horse let alone his arm and horse's head. Once Crazy Horse is finished it will be an amazing carving.

Something I missed by one day is that on the first full weekend in June, people get to walk out on the Crazy Horse carving near his head. The long piece above the hole in the granite will be his arm resting on the horse's head. The arm is currently flat and you get to walk up onto the arm near the face. They had over 11,000 people this year walk up to his face. That would be fun to be able to get that close and take some pictures from up there.

Since they are still in the process of carving the rest of Crazy Horse, there is a lot of rock to remove from the mountain and then move away from the sculpture. So you get to take as much of the rock as you care to take with you. I took a small piece that appears to be light grey granite. Upon closer inspection there is some black and pink and some clear crystals in the rock. They also give you a business card that tells you what the minerals and materials are of the rock by color. That is certainly one way to get rid of the debris - free souvenirs.

I know that the carving will not be completed in my lifetime and I am not sure if the carving will be completed in my daughter Jennifer's life time - but it will certainly be a site to see once it is finished. The sculpture was begun in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski. He worked entirely on his own for the first 5 years and has since had 10 children, 7 of whom work on the carving in one form or another along with spouses and grand children.

The foundation building the sculpture is totally non-profit and was twice offered $1o million from the US Government which was turned down so not to affect the Indian cultural and education plans of the foundation. Many of the items for sale in the gift shop are donated so that more of the proceeds can go to helping carve the mountain.

An impressive undertaking. I hope they finish the carving sooner rather than later and get to move on the cultural and educational pieces of the endeavour.

Between visiting Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore I stopped at the National Woodcarvers Museum. Silly me, I did not take a picture of the sign at the museum as you can not take any pictures inside the museum. The museum is mostly one man's work - a dentist named Dr. Niblack. He not only carved the figures, he created motors and other mechanical parts to animate the figures. Walt Disney approached him and Dr. Niblack was one of the initial animators for Disney.

Finally one of the most exciting aspects for the Black Hills for me turned out to be a part of Custer State Park. Custer State Park has an area where wildlife roam free. There are plenty of prong horn antelope, white tail deer, prairie dogs, elk and what I was obsessed in seeing - buffalo.

I suppose my obsession had to do with what Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse stand for and the Little Bighorn Battlefield and spending time on the Blackfeet Reservation. I wanted to the buffalo in the wild roaming free. And I did. Along with being in Lincoln's home in Springfield and touching the banister he used in the house, seeing the buffalo was the most inspiring aspect of the trip so far.

I saw the prong horn antelope and some white tail deer and even a lone prairie dog but I had a hard time locating the buffalo. They are free to roam the park on their own and while there is a herd of about 20 buffalo, no one tracks them. I went in search of them early on the morning I had to drive to Minneapolis - which turned into the first of back-to-back 18 hour days on the road to Indy. But I found them.

There were 2 recent additions to the herd, which was highly protective of the young ones. It must have been amazing to see thousands of buffalo moving on the plains and what a sound a stampede would make. They are huge animals and not something I would want to mess with or make angry. A very majestic animal and easily seen why the American Indian respected and revered them.

The next stop on the journey is Wounded Knee. This is the last great massacre of the American Indian by the soldiers of the US Calvary. Much of the land is still rolling hills dotted with small groupings of houses. Very impoverished, the people lead simple lives. There are Indians that man information areas near the battle site that explain what happened and they do art work in one form or another waiting for the opportunity to tell their story to passing tourists.

Also along the way to Minneapolis was a stop in Pierre, SD to see the State Capitol building and a pretty sunset. The day partly cloudy so I was able to drive much of the way from Custer State Park through the grass lands to the Interstate to Pierre and then on to Minneapolis. At the SD rest stops they had stylized versions of Tipi supports and at the one I stopped at an interesting sign near the pet walking area. Of course near sunset the clouds disappeared so not much color was caught by the camera, but there is a nice picture none the less.

The next day brings us to the Great Mall of America and the capitols of Minnesota and Wisconsin before finally getting to Indy. But more on that in the next post.

Thanks for traveling along with me.

Michael