Oddly when I mentioned to people that I was spending Memorial Day weekend in South Dakota, without fail the majority of the people I told asked me if I had family there. The theory being that no one clearly would go there unless they had to. It was also alarming to realize how few people actually knew that Mount Rushmore was in South Dakota. I'm not sure where people think it is.
Of course, Mount Rushmore was indeed a big draw for going to the state. It was an amazing monument and it was interesting to learn about how it was created (most of the carving was accomplished with dynamite). To see the exhibit about how it was built made you realize how difficult a job it would have been.
The Crazy Horse monument was not nearly as done as I thought. It actually isn't done at all. They have a lot of work to do but it should be amazing when they get it done finally. It's going to be an immense work. The Indian Museum of North America had some interesting exhibits.
When you are out west you can't help but think of buffalo. The Custer National Park has herds of them and they were amazing to see. They were immense animals just grazing away and also clearly shedding their heavy winter coats. They also had their cute babies. For cute in a prairie, you can't get much cuter than the prairie dogs. They were beyond adorable and with their cute little babies were fun to watch just tentatively poking their heads above ground to see what the adults were up to. They were so much fun to watch popping in and out of their burrows.
Very early on Sunday morning found us driving to Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. If you remember Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you know Devil's Tower. It was magnificent and you could definitely tell it is a spiritual place. While geologists are still not 100% sure how this unique structure formed, the Native Americas say it was formed when a giant bear was chasing several maidens. The maidens hopped on a flat rock and prayed to the Great Spirit for help. As they prayed the rock grew and the grooves on the side of the rock are from the bear's immense claws. The maidens turned into the constellation Pleiades.
We stayed in the gold mine town of Lead (pronounced like lead a horse). It is a mile high city that has an open pit gold mine. The amazing thing about the town is how fluid it is. I mean because the town is crisscossed by tunnels they occasionally have to move buildings to a different part of town. A church brick by brick, the school, a dancehall, and homes all on the move based on where the mines took them. That has to be so odd to have buildings changing locations. The mine in Lead is no longer in the gold business but is instead being used for scientific research.
Every where we hiked you were reminded to take care where you stepped lest you meet a rattlesnake!
Our last stop was the amazing Badlands. It was like nothing I have ever seen before. The landscape was otherworldly and beautiful. The landscape was interesting because parts were devoid of anything green and just clay as far as the eye could see. It was like being on another planet! Then another hike we took there were beautiful wildflowers, grass and cactus (not a combination you often see) almost like a field. We got up before the sunrise on our last day to watch the sun rise in the Badlands. It was early but definitely worth it.
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