Written by Kim
Today was quite a busy day so this will be a bit of a long post but I organized it in sections so you can skip around if you’d like. We left Deadwood early this morning and looped to all the beautiful sites in SD returning to Deadwood which I’ll put in a separate post.
Mt. Rushmore was our first stop. The sculpture was completed in 1941. The sculpture features the 60-foot-tall heads of four United States presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln,chosen to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively. The only word I can find to describe it is majestic.
One thing we learned is that Jefferson was originally planned to be farthest left but early blasting showed that the rock was not sufficient for his head so they blasted it off and moved Jefferson to the right of Washington.
There was a nice states mall as you entered the plaza walking toward the mountain. It has each states flag and a plaque commemorating their admission into the US.
Crazy Horse Memorial was our second stop. Crazy Horse Monument is carved into the face of a mountain in the Black Hills. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It honors the Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, who was a key player in the 1876 battle of Little Bighorn also known as Custer’s last stand. Crazy Horse told people he would return to them in stone so he is the perfect warrior to be honored. The first blast to begin the memorial was in 1948. When completed it will be 563 high 641 ft long. It’s nearly 10 times taller than Mt, Rushmore.
The sculptor, Ziolkowski, married his wife Ruth and had 10 children – 5 girls and 5 boys. When he died in 1982 Ruth managed the project until her death. Ruth chose to adjust the plan and do the face first instead of the horse because she thought she could drive more visitors to continue to raise funds. The head emerged between 1988 to 1998. Ruth died 2014. 3rd & 4th generation of the family works on the monument now. Ziolkowski said, “When the legends die dreams end and when dreams end so does greatness”.
Custer State Park is a South Dakota State Park and wildlife reserve located in the Black Hills. A temporary pass for 1-7 days costs $20 to enter. The park covers an area of over 71,000 acres of varied terrain including rolling prairie grasslands and rugged mountains. We took the Wildlife Loop and saw lots of wildlife – prairie dogs, Bison, antelope, long horned sheep. etc.
Thirty-six bison were bought in 1914 to begin a herd. It is estimated that the park can sustain about 1,000 400 to 500 calves are born each year. At an auction in September, several hundred are sold at so that the remaining number of animals will be compatible with the rangeland forage.
The landscapes were gorgeous too
The Needles Highway is a spectacular drive in Custer State Park through ponderosa pine and Black Hills spruce forests, meadows surrounded by birch and aspen, and rugged granite mountains. The road’s name comes from the needle-like granite formations, which seem to pierce the horizon along the highway. It was amazing.
I’ve caught Alex’s cold. He’s getting better and now I’m sneezing….ugh. We went back to the hotel to rest a bit before heading down to Deadwood. Tomorrow we head to Montana to check off another state. I must say South Dakota was absolutely beautiful and a bit of a surprise. Until then….
