July 10, 2013

We left North Sioux City at 6:30 AM today. We ate breakfast in the car on our drive. We took route 29 to 50 in order to avoid major roads and any interstate congestion. Funny thing is, there is no traffic out here…anywhere…even through construction zones and through towns.

We drove through 2 Native American reservations-Rosebud and Pine Forest. Most of the reservations were open land and dotted with cows and wild mustangs. Rosebud and Pine Forest had the unfortunately typical towns you picture in Indian Reservations. These towns were dilapidated and surrounded by Native Americans trying to hitch rides. It doesn’t seem like there is a whole lot to live for out here, it is actually very sad. Once you leave the actual town, the land is barren and rocky.

Food for thought: It’s somewhat ironic that we took the land from the NA, introduced them to drugs and alcohol, gave them diseased items to use, and killed them freely at places like Wounded Knee…then decided to give them a little section of land to live on called a reservation—it seems like that is everything we’d be against as Americans. But, then again, the NA are the true Americans. We wanted to learn more about the indigenous people and their way of life.

We ate lunch while we fueled up in Rosebud and hoped to get to the Badlands momentarily. Again, we drove for hours and hours and hours until we reached our destination. We saw antelope roaming with more wild horses. You really could see for miles and miles. South Dakota was beautiful. The only problem was our GPS had no idea where we were. It kept telling us we were on “road,” and couldn’t give us any more information—eek!

We made a right in Pine Forest on what we thought was the correct road we needed to get to the Badlands. We had no cell phone service and no GPS. We passed one cop and nothing else, no road signs and no civilization for somewhere between 25-50 miles. Eventually we saw rock outcroppings and assumed we were close to or in the Badlands. The rock formations kept expanding and we figured we’d hit the Badlands. We also saw a Native American pony a foal while riding its momma out on a trail with no lead line or anything—it was super cute! Chris said “well, I think that was the Badlands” and I responded with, “really? That’s all?” It didn’t seem to be quite “bad” enough although I would not want to be lost there either!

BAM! There is was! We just reached the actual Badlands. It’s hard to describe it and the pictures don’t quite do it justice but it was miles and miles, as far as you can see of solid rock and cliffs in a gully. The ground dropped down from the scenic area where we stopped and it was like a huge vast hole of just rocks. I’ll put it this way, if a helicopter dropped you off in the middle, there’s a good chance you’d never get out—alive. J I cannot imagine being the first pioneer to come out here and see this.

We left the Badlands and headed for Mt. Rushmore. If you don’t have a lot of time, you may want to continue reading later, I have a lot to write about the next two stops.

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One of the funniest things we saw was a lady and a little tiny dog on a motorcycle and the dog had goggles on, people were taking pictures and you couldn’t help but laugh!

We saw Mt. Rushmore as we drove to our campground. It was pretty awesome looking at all the faces as we drove around the mountain. George W. was most impressive because you get to a point around the mountain where you can see his profile and nothing else; it was ominous at 5 PM when we arrived.

The KOA we stayed at was a place you could spend a few days at alone. There was so much to do. Two pools, mini golf, a restaurant, trail rides, horse and carriage rides to dinner, a wine shop along with a few other attractions.

We unloaded and we were hungry and tired but knew we had to keep trek on to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse if we wanted to see it all tonight. We went to Crazy Horse first. I planned for us to stop there first because it sounded like it was solely a memorial and not a whole lot else. When we arrived, we had to pay 10/person to get in which I thought was kind of crappy for a look at a memorial. I was very wrong. We walked in to the visitor center/museum and watched a 20 minute video on the construction of the memorial. Korczak Ziolkowski, the man who started Crazy Horse, never accepted a dime from federal or government agencies. He even rejected a 10 million dollar grant. Z’s family has completely carried on his legacy and his wife, Ruth, still lives on the side of the visitor’s center in a newer, attached home. 7 out of 10 of his children still work on the mountain today doing different jobs. Let me back up a little…he was asked by Lakota elders to construct a memorial to the late Crazy Horse to show the “red man achieved great things,” too. Z had been an apprentice at Mt. Rushmore and decided he would give it a shot. He had to chop down all the wood needed to construct 750 steps up to the mountain and worked alone for many, many years. He told people he had so many children so he had help on the memorial(jokingly). The face was uncovered in 1998 and the construction moves slower because of the lack of fed. Funding, but still goes on today. Z’s son drives 3 pick-up loads of rocks from the blasts down the mountain a day for visitors to take home…we took two! The experience at Crazy horse was quite humbling. The pictures of Chris and I in front of the scale model give you an idea as to how big Crazy Horse is/will be. Every inch on the model represents 34 feet in the actual sculpture.  All of Mount Rushmore could fit inside Crazy Horse’s head—enormous!

Next, we rushed to Mount Rushmore haha and got to get up close and personal with the presidents. The entire monument was awesome. Being so close to the real thing was a surreal experience. It’s something kids learn about and you hear about and see pictures of, but being right next to it creates a completely different feeling. It was 8 PM by this time and we were starving. We grabbed a bite to eat and sat outside to admire the amazing masterpiece. Dinner was beautiful here.

We traveled back to Crazy Horse for the 9:30 PM laser light show. It started with a prelude of Native American music and outlines of NA and European Americans danced across the actual memorial. We were able to sit in our cars and watch. It gave a good picture of life for the NA and how they were mistreated by Americans in a very tactful way. The laser light show was very peaceful-much like the NA themselves.

We got back to the Campground around 10:30 and passed out….