Big

Our day started early and we arrived at Mt Rushmore before 8.  While the place is humungous, I actually found it smaller seeming that ‘what you see on TV”.    However, while in Time Square, the more time I spent the smaller it got, Mt Rushmore actually got bigger.  It was a very impressive project.  I’m really glad to have seen it.  I don’t have to return.

From there we traveled directly to Crazy Horse Mountain.  En route a mountain goat came out of the woods with her baby.  This was a highlight - not seeing a goat out  in a field.  No, a goat that if I didn’t know better, I could have opened my window and fed.  I was very excited.

Crazy Horse too was humungous.  Apparently what we saw today is radically different from even a few years ago.  In terms of the statue, basically the face is done and not much else, but there is a large complex - museum, shop, snack bar,, etc.  It too was interesting and is a massively impressive project.  All of Rushmore fits into a section behind the head.  The size and scope of it is unfathomable even standing less then a mile from the work site.  Again, I found myself really glad to see it, but not sure I’d ever have to return.

I know I am far from nature girl.  But I think some of this feeling comes from how unnatural both of these tributes are in this natural setting.  We have driven for days seeing mostly nature and very little man made.  When we arrive here in this region - even the “cities” are some what sparse and isolated.  It is truly a beautiful wilderness.  Wild animals are roaming free, there’s miles of majestic mountains.  So when one then sees Rushmore or Crazy Horse -  their size and project are truly striking, but they also - at least for me, scream of man’s intrusion on nature.

I respect the Crazy Horse project as it’s politics I share, and it is being completed with no governmental “help”.  At the same time, because it is in the process of being created, this intrusion into nature becomes even more noticeable.  (Of course, this did not stop me from taking the souvenir rocks that are offered.  And I shall refrain from the multitude of jokes about being dumber than a box of rocks in that we will carry or ship rocks home.  In my defense - they are very small rocks….)  

Not far from Crazy Horse there is a forest fire.  It’s been going all day.  We can see the smoke for miles.  Lots and lots of smoke - it fills the sky like clouds.  I can’t imagine how big this fire is.  It is not near enough to us for concern, but it will figure into choosing our route South tomorrow.

After our statues and a bit of lunch and stroll, we headed to the “National Wood Carving Museum.”   And you thought Zombie Lincoln was scary?  Wait until you see this one.  Here too a series of vignettes with talking wood carvings that told you about the past.  But this time the statues were all wood carved. 

I had (foolishly) thought with a name like National… Museum that it would contain lots of samples, examples, variation?  Nope.  There was one guy - albeit a famous guy for wood carving 75 years ago - and it was all his work.  Most of it caricatures of cowboys, old west or bums.   

The only thing that made it worth it, was the scary picture below and that they had a miniature merry-go-round (carved by a different group of carvers), one of the animals looking exactly like the giant sea monster carved by M’s father that sits in our dining room.  (When we get home, I’ll post the two pictures for those following along.)

And worse - this animated wood carving was behind the "men

's room" door.

This one is 8 inches or so - ours is about 3 feet

I have to say our hometown wood carvers, my father-in-law’s work and M’s work are all a bazillion times better (in my humble opinion).

Leaving the “museum” we were a bit tired and thought we’d take a nice little ride on the way back to the motel.  We’d drive through Custer State Park and ride Needle Highway - it is supposed to be breathtaking.

It is.   For both it’s beauty and sheer terror.  Before we left, J and I were talking about the trip and at one point she said something like ‘oh the switchbacks …and you don’t like Mountains…’  She got a little quiet for a second, and I thought it was just no, I don’t like mountains.  I didn’t think that it was oh, she’s going to be terrified I better not mention anything more.

Let me back track to say it was beautiful.  It was amazing. Anyone in the region should take the drive.  And if you’ve not done it - spoiler alert - do not read the next paragraph or you might not go.

Imagine being so high up you are at the tree line.  There are jagged pointy needle like rocks jutting up next to you.  And on the other side of you in a drop - no guard rail, no shoulder, not much of anything for you hair pin travel - just a small two lane road.  It closes in winter. (Good thing.)  Oh and as you’re traveling up and down these hair pins, between these big rocks and deadly drops, there are tunnels.  Tunnels that fit only one car’s width and if you open the windows (which we didn’t because it’s still 106 here) you can touch the walls.

I was a brave dinosaur - I offered to drive, but M. said since he was nervous, I’d be petrified. I figured it didn’t matter I already was - being on the side of the car that was closest to the drop.   So I took pictures and tried not to think about it.

We were pretty tired after that trip, so we’ve headed in early and plan for an early start tomorrow.  Tomorrow we head South and probably turn East into Nebraska.