South Dakota

We got an early start from Denver, driving upwards through Colorado, crossing the corner of Wyoming over to South Dakota. It was a long drive, the scenery was flat and grassy but rock formations gradually appeared as we crossed into Wyoming. I kinda expected to see Road Runner and Coyote appear somewhere along the way as the scenery looked like that from the cartoon. We needed a coffee break and decided to stop at a tiny town and find a diner. We’ve found it hard to find that typical US diner with the waitress in a checkered apron who serves you coffee and pie. Well, sadly this was not that type of diner but it was certainly full of local-yocals with a typical diner menu. Wasn’t the greatest food but it filled a gap in our tummy.

We arrived at our destination for the night – Keystone, South Dakota. There are many attractions in this area including Custer National Park but the Black Hills is home to Mt Rushmore National Memorial and the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Crazy Horse was a native American war leader of the Lakota tribe. He fought against the US Federal Government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people. He led a war party to victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 against General Custer. However, later the following year, he surrendered to US troops under General Crook in 1877. He was fatally stabbed in the back by a soldier while allegedly resisting imprisonment. He ranks against the most notable and iconic of native American tribal members. Thanks to wiki for that summary. The Crazy Horse memorial is a long, long, long term mission that aims to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians. The sculpture itself is impressive but the memorial aims to develop an education and research facility, medical training centre for American Indians and an Indian University. The sculpture was started by Korczak Ziolkowski. In 1939, the Lakota Chief asked Korcak to carve a sculpture to pay tribute to a man of legend and culture that should not be forgotten. The dream was realized and greatly expanded to the mission explained above. 

Korczak and his wife had 10 children and the whole family continue to manage this non-profit organisation today even after Korczak and his wife have since died. The sculpture is in pegmatite granite, his face is 27m in height when completed, the entire sculpture will be 171m high and 195m long. The photo to the side shows the complete original carving of Crazy Horse and his horse (compare to the sculpture in the background).  You can see the sculpture has a long way to completion as they are currently working on his arm and horse. I haven’t found any info to indicate when they expect the sculpture to be completed. It was great to see this sculpture and the museum was full of Indian tribal history and artefacts but we didn’t learn anything about Crazy Horse himself. There was a short movie about the sculptor and his family and the overall mission but, we were a little disappointed with the lack of info on the legend himself. We didn’t spend a lot of time there but I’m glad we saw it.

Next stop was the famous Mt. Rushmore where the four US Presidents are carved into the rock. This sculpture is much smaller than Crazy Horse (will be) but it’s still very impressive. The visitor centre is well established and you could walk around the base of the sculpture to see it a little closer and at different angles. It was late afternoon and a thunderstorm was brewing. We made it back to the visitor centre just when the rain and hail pelted down. So we were stuck in the gift shop with 100 other people (mostly stinky farting annoying loud school teenagers). The four Presidents are, from left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. There was chatter amongst the visitors about ‘imagine Trump being carved up there’. Crikey, what a dreadful thought. But Batman made an appearance and it is certainly appropriate that those striking pointed ears should be carved there next to George. We enjoyed seeing Mt Rushmore and it certainly is an icon of American landmarks.

We stayed in the local town called Keystone which was like a mix of old time shops and small amusement park attractions. We had a burger at a local place called Grizzly’s Burgers – I had a Buffalo burger but it tasted just like a beef burger.

The next day we drove through a number of towns including Deadwood and Sundance on our way up to Montana. Deadwood is like this town from the days of the old West with lots of gambling houses and the look and feel of the day. Sundance was tiny, like about 1200 population tiny. We stopped here for a coffee. The trip advisor reviews (all four of them) were all good and it was ok for a morning wake up coffee.

The Sundance Kid (Butch Cassidy's sidekick) was named after this town and there is a little statue in town of the man himself.

Our trip is going well and it's not too busy despite being summer and almost school holidays. There are lots of Harley Davidson riders and the ever popular RV and camper van  We can tell the wealth of the retiree by the type of camper van they have. You either have the Winnebago type, the RV that tows a 4WD, the SUV truck with cabin on the back or the massive 4WD cabin thing on steroids. The countryside is amazing to look at and Deb's chief passenger job is animal spotting when not sleeping or tapping to her dubious selection of music. Haven't seen too many animals yet but we expect to see more as we cross into Yellowstone. Deb has been watching bear and elk videos on youtube and we will be buying bear spray at our first stop in the park !!!