Today we returned to the Crazy Horse Memorial because we were too late for the bus ride to the bottom of the monument when we were here on Sunday and thought it was something worth doing. We also drove the loop road (which is a TRUE loop road by the way) through Custer State Park, which I now declare my SECOND favorite place in South Dakota!
Kathi had scheduled us to have massages yesterday but she got a call from the place saying that the city was doing some jackhammer work just outside their location and that they were cancelling all of their appointments for the day because who wants to listen to jackhammers while they are getting a massage?? We rescheduled for today at 6pm, so we knew we had to get all of our sightseeing done and get back into Rapid City by 5:45 to make it to our massage appointment. Even so, we got a bit of a late start on our daily adventures, not leaving the house until around 1pm. We went to Crazy Horse first and arrived just in time to take the bus to the foot of the monument. Our bus driver was clever and funny and told us stories on the drive.
The original sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was commissioned by Lakota Elder Henry Standing Bear to create the memorial because he felt that white man should know that the red man has great heroes, too. Work began on the memorial in 1948 and it is FAR from completion but continues to be worked on to this day. Ziolkowski and his wife had 13 children and nearly all of them have had and continue to have a hand in the project. Ziolkowski left detailed instructions for those he left behind regarding not only his vision for the work but how to go about completing it because he knew he would not be able to complete it in his lifetime.
Once it is finished it will be the world's second largest statue, second to the Statue of Unity. The other thing that we learned from our bus driver/tour guide is how much more there is to do and see on this site that, unfortunately, if we were going to drive the loop road around Custer State Park and get back in time for our massages, we were going to have to miss out on. The site includes: The Indian Museum of North America, the Native American Educational and Cultural Center, Korczak's home and studio, a gift shop and a restaurant. We wished that we had more time to explore all of these, but really wanted to see Custer State Park and today was our last chance to do that, so upon returning to the Visitor's Center from the bus ride, we got back into the car and drove to Custer State Park.
Custer National Park is yet another place of natural beauty, like the Badlands and Spearfish Canyon, that South Dakota is lucky enough to claim. We had the opportunity to see MANY animals in their natural habitat in the park and on a beautiful, warm sunny day.
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By far, the most amusing and charming of the critters that we saw today were the wild burros. Stopping traffic by standing in the middle of the road and poking their heads INTO the cars with open windows. They were hilarious and we adored them.  We were surrounded on three sides of the car for a short while and made our escape when the burro in front of us finally moved on. It wasn't long after we started moving again that Kathi's phone rang and it was our massage place calling to tell us that one of their technicians had become sick and that they needed to cancel our massages, once again. This was disappointing, but not the end of the world. It allowed for us to leisurely finish our drive around the park and return "home". Well, I'm not so sure that "leisurely" is the correct word. The road leaving the park was very reminiscent of the Needles Highway in that it was quite curvy, including many hairpin turns and at least one narrow, one-way tunnel. There is a video of a portion of this drive on both my Facebook page and Kathi's. The file was too big for me to include here on the blog. We stopped for a Starbucks on our way back and while we were both relieved to get out of the car, I think Kathi was especially so because driving that kind of road can certainly cause some tension and anxiety! Neither of us was hungry since we ate the sandwiches that Kathi had made for us while on the road, so we settled in for the evening to watch a little TV and load photos onto our computers. All day long we had been hearing dire predictions of a winter storm coming in on Wednesday and we were hoping we would get out before it all started. Oh! I almost forgot! I tossed the states remaining last night and next year's state was determined. It is West Virginia. Almost Heaven, so I have heard. |
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