Wow! The Black Hills are even better than we expected. Such beautiful fall colors this time of year. We drove up a highway called the Needles because of the shape of the rock formations that form the mountains and just jut straight up out of the earth. They are so huge that they have carved tunnels through them for the winding road that takes you through the area. When you come through the last tunnel, in the distance you can see the faces on Mt. Rushmore framed in the tunnel. Really a magnificent view, but it didn't photograph well, unfortunately. And then when we found out it would be $10 to park, another fee to get into the Park, and then a bus ride you had to take to get close enough to photograph the faces, we decided--since we'd been driving on the Needles highway all day anyway--that we'd just buy a postcard somewhere. So, sorry about that if you were hoping for a picture of the presidents!
As you can see, we got up close and personal with the wild burros on that drive, too. Kinda made us miss our donkey, Hoti!
On this same drive, we stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial. Learning the history of that artist and what he had to go through to get as far as he did before his death really made us feel like slackers! Can you imagine taking on a job where you're going to single-handedly turn a mountain into a statue??? Today, his wife and seven of his 10 children are continuing the work. Hopefully, in this picture you can see not only the projected statue as a model, but the mountain in the distance that they're blasting away at. Along with the statue, the Memorial site has a really wonderful Native American museum and you can tour the home of the artist and his family and see all of his other carvings and artwork. You can read more about it here: http://www.crazyhorse.org/. I think it's an incredible story.
The trip to Deadwood was a wonderful surprise--I had it pictured as being in country like the Badlands, but it was a beautiful little valley with the town restored to pristine condition, thanks to the legalized gambling they've put into place there. We went to three different museums that day, so we didn't finish up with the tour of the graveyard where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane and the rest of that crew were buried. We were great fans of the HBO Deadwood series, and it was fun to find out how much research went into the series to make it as realistic as possible, without being a total documentary. Most of the characters were based on the real saloon owners, lawmen, ladies of the evening, and miners and business people from that time, and they captured their personalities very well.
On Monday, we had to hit the road again. There was a lot more we could have done in that area--could have easily spent another day or two there--but it was time to move on get to our Wisconsin destination and reunion by Oct 2.
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