The Big Faces

Black Hills

On to the Big Faces!  We were quite confident that we could find a campsite in Custer State Park, near Mt. Rushmore, since there were many different campgrounds to choose from.  So, on the way, we stopped for breakfast at a great restaurant, called Crazy Woman Café, in an adorable little town (pop. 350) called Ten Sleep.  The name came from the fact that it took the Indians ten nights (sleeps) to get there from their winter campground.  I bought a t-shirt there and when I wore it for the first time, I got many, many comments because the name is so catchy.

Then we made another detour to Devil’s Tower, the iconic monolith of Wyoming where they filmed Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  There was also a huge prairie dog colony that we visited. We took a short hike part way around the base, and then off to South Dakota. However, when we got to Custer State Park at about 5:30 pm, much to our surprise, there were not sites to be had.  However, taking a lesson from the folks from New York that we met at Sinks Canyon, we stopped in at the first campgrounds, and lo and behold…a site had just opened up.  Lucky us!  Not the greatest campsite, it being in an open field right by the road.  But…we met a lovely couple we had lived in Juneau, Alaska for 25 years and had a nice evening with them, learning many useful tips on life in Alaska.

Our first full day we visited Mt. Rushmore but were stopped in our tracks for a while by the buffalo that kept crossing the road.  Apparently this state park has the largest herd of buffalo in the country.  At one point two males started crossing the street in front of us.  It was quite cute until they stopped and one smacked the other with his horns.  Then the second one had to hit back and I started saying to David, “Back up.  Back up now.”  Since one was almost as big as the car, he did until the boys calmed down and ran up the hill on the other side of the road.

 

Mt. Rushmore was quite a spectacle. It included the mountain carvings, the sculpture studio, a long paved and stepped walkway with many views of the carvings, several videos and a kind of pathetic nod to Indians which consisted of a few teepees and artifacts.  The place was packed and it certainly lived up to our expectations.  It was a great tribute to Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and T. Roosevelt as well as a tribute to our country.

The this photo is the model from which Gutzon Borglum worked to create the mountain sculpture.

This was in great contrast to the Crazy Horse memorial that we next visited, which seemed more like a tribute to the sculpture Korczak Ziolkowski. The only visible sign of a sculpture was the face of Crazy Horse.   Missing his hair, the rest of his body and the horse. this is what the mountain should look like.  It seems that old K refused to take any government money so the project has been poking along for 50 years so far.  There was very little mention of Indians and the carved plaque that will eventually (not in my lifetime) be on the sculpture was a quote from K.  Great Indian dance demonstrations, however.