Day 26 Week 4

I’m in Deadwood South Dakota tonight. The home of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. It is a lovely little town in the middle of a valley. Most of the buildings in the main street are original from the 1800’s.

Wild Bill Hickoks grave

The trip here today was fairly uneventful for the first 4 hours. Travelling across hundreds of miles of South Dakota Prairie. Finally arrived in the Black Hills about 12.30. It was nice to be amongst pine trees and beautiful scenery. Mt Rushmore is very impressive but it really needs to be viewed through binoculars to appreciate the work that went into it. 12.5 years of hanging on ropes and chiselling out the mountain.

South Dakota Prairie

 Finally the Black Hills in the distance

Approaching Mt Rushmore

After Mt Rushmore, I continued on another 13 miles further up the road to the Crazy Horse Monument that is being constructed nearby. Now THAT is impressive. The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski started work in 1948 at the request of a local Indian Chief Henry Standing Bear. The sculpture is a monument honouring all North American Indian People. Here is a link to their website.

http://crazyhorsememorial.org/

To give you an idea of the size of this rock carving, more rock was removed to make the hole under Crazy Horse’ arm than was removed in the whole of Mt Rushmore. The hole took 3 years to make, starting from the other side. The tunnel was a lot longer than it is now because they have removed so much of the rock from the side.  It is a bit like the Grand Canyon in that it really has to be seen to be appreciated. If you look closely at the pictures you can just make out bulldozers and excavators on the mountain.

Tomorrow, I am off to the Devils Tower National Monument. Some may remember it being made out of mashed potato in Close Encounters. From there I am going to the scene of Custers Last Stand.