Rushmore, et al

We camped on the wrong side.  The fun, touristy towns like Custer, Hill City, and Keystone, along with the scenic mountains and valleys of Custer State Park and Black Hills Nat'l Forest were on one side of Rushmore and we were on the other side, parked in a shadeless field.  (Think of the prairies in the movie, “Dances with Wolves”.  You might even hum the John Dunbar theme.  It helps.)  Sad occurrences like this can happen when you don't know the area and are lured, sight unseen, to campgrounds offering discounts.  But we were relatively close to the Badlands, to which we went first, so I’ll start there.

Husband found a long loop from Rapid City through the Badlands which he figured would make a great motorcycle ride.  And it would have been, if not for the monstrous headwind.  It tried its best to blow us off the road every exhausting inch of the way.  The route took us 60-some miles from Rapid City down to Wall, another small South Dakota town.  On the way we became well acquainted with Wall Drug, a store which, many years ago, decided to become better known.  So it did ….. with signs all along the freeway every minute or two.   

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This constant, yet light-hearted advertising probably made it the most famous drugstore in America.  If you’re ever in the area, you must go.  Not for any good reason, just for curiosity.  The town has eagerly jumped onto the bandwagon with a western theme.  It’s cute and corny and appears to sell every silly souvenir and cheap T-shirt under the sun.  I did notice a small section of actual medicinals in one corner of the sprawling complex, to give it sufficient credibility for being a drugstore.  (I look awful in the obligatory photo in front of the store, so it's not getting posted.  Blaming helmet hair.)

The Badlands.  The only pics I got were from the bike as we rode through the pounding wind.

In my opinion, having been to scenic giants like Bryce Canyon in southern Utah, the Badlands were worth seeing (I suppose) but once is enough.  Just my opinion.  It's well named, though.   Our trip back, however, rewarded us with a tiny ghost town called Scenic, that featured one small functioning store and post office.  The rest looked like this:

Notice the cattle skulls hanging over the sign.

And there was even an old jail.  So cool!

The store proprietor said the town dried up when they stopped selling alcohol.  It went, he said, from rowdy to peaceful, almost overnight. 

The next day we wound through narrow mountain roads and single-lane tunnels to the wonderful and incredible Mt. Rushmore.  When you’ve seen something in pictures and movies throughout your life, and then… finally ….. see it in person … it has impact.  

And wow.  It was Grand Central in the middle of nowhere.  There was a huge, multi-level parking garage, cafeteria and other eateries, gift shops, visitors center with two theaters, a large amphitheater, and enough displays to keep a very large crowd busy.  All colorfully bedecked with the flags of our 50 states.  But all trappings aside, the carving of the four men on the mountain is truly a masterpiece, an engineering marvel, and worth the trip.

Selfies -- rarely our thing.

I have never before noticed that the carvings included more than just their faces.  Do you see Washington’s lapel and Lincoln’s collar?  We learned that it was originally supposed to go down to their waists as you can see in the model below.  I did some googling to see why they didn’t finish it. Later I heard a tour guide say the rock had too many faults and cracks further out in places where, for example, Lincoln’s ear should be.  They feared it might eventually break off.  So they stopped carving.  It wasn’t due to lack of funds, as per comments on the internet.

(Lincoln is holding a pipe.)

They say ya gotta go see Crazy Horse while you’re there.  “It’s HUGE”, they say.  So we did.  If it is ever finished, it will definitely dwarf the four presidents on Rushmore, to say the least.  But in over 60 years, what is meant to be the top half of a man on his horse carved from a mountain, is yet only his face and the beginning of his outstretched arm.  It was started in 1948 (shortly after work stopped at Rushmore) by one man, a sculptor, who was invited by a group of Native Americans to create a monument to show the world that they too, have heroes to honor.  He worked on it mostly alone with old, worn-out equipment and few tools, while his devoted wife bore him many children.   As the years went by, those children took up the cause and to this day, his descendants (none of whom are Native Americans) continue to spearhead the work.  To their credit, they refuse any government funds.  It’s all financed by donations and entry fees.  ($11 per person)  The lovely knotty-pine visitors center shows a somewhat longish film meant as a tribute to the family and to promote support for their cause.  But to be honest … it was kind of sad.  It seems like such a futile effort.  You can’t help but notice in the display photos that it has hardly changed in the last 20 years.  

Sufficiently visible from the road.

We wound through Custer State Park and saw buffalo, deer, antelope (still no moose) and traveled some very winding, high, mountain roads.   We held our breath as we squeezed our Jeep through more VERY tight tunnels, feeling glad we had left our motorhome behind.  We saw another RV in a pullout along the road between two of those tunnels that were spaced a mile or so apart with no escape road between them.  We have no idea how it got there and how on earth … it will get out.  The thought of it still haunts me a little.

With that, it was time to point our caravan west and trek home.