Black Hills, SD

Total Trip Miles:  7,681

After two travel days we were ready to mix in a little sightseeing today.  After leaving Glacier National Park, we headed southeast through Montana and Wyoming and this morning we crossed into South Dakota.  This was Black Hills Country and Native American Reservations. Many tribes, Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow, Lakota, once called this land home. 

Once on I-90 we eased back into mainstream America, leaving the wide-open spaces of the west behind, seeing huge billboards, larger cities and housing subdivisions.  We turned south at Rapid City and followed the signs to Mt. Rushmore, in the middle of Black Hills National Forest.   

The idea to carve a monument in The Black Hills was born in the year 1923.  John Gutzon, the son of a Danish immigrant, was chosen for the job based on his sculpture of Lincoln (1908).   Gutzon began the process in 1927 and continued for the next 14 years.  He died seven months before its completion and dedication in 1941.  

We thoroughly enjoyed the movie that showed the planning, dynamite blasting, jackhammering and bumping process to smooth the finished granite.  The scale of the carvings required a frame from which he hung a plumb bob to enlarge dimensions 12 times the size of the scale model.  What a monumental undertaking!  

Since it was only 30 miles away we decided to visit the Crazy Horse Monument.  Our first view was from the highway coming around a curve, but the scale escaped us.  There were hundreds of cars in the parking lot when we arrived, so we just went with the flow.  

Again, a movie skillfully explained the history, starting in 1939 when  Henry Standing Bear ("Mato Naji"), an Oglala Lakota chief ,  recruited the Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to build a monument to honor his Native-American people.  He wanted people to understand that his people had heroes too.  The scale was massive, with the head being almost 88ft tall. 

The Crazy Horse project became Ziolkowski’s life work.  After his death, his wife and their 10 children have carried on the dream.  Currently the work was focused on his hand and arm, and we wondered how many more generations it would require to complete the original vision.  

We settled into Sleepy Hollow Campground in Wall for the night having enjoyed our day in The Black Hills of South Dakota.