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Sunday, July 2, 2022
This morning we went to nearby Crazy Horse Memorial. The project started off as a Mount Rushmore style mountain carving to commemorate the great Indian Chief Crazy Horse. Over the years it has expended to include a museum and a school. It’s full plans call for a huge complex dedicated to the protection and preservation of all North American Indians. The first ceremonial carving took place in 1948 with the work beginning in earnest in 1949.
When we were in the area in 2004 we visited this place. During that time the carvers had just about completed Crazy Horse’s face and had begun work on his outstretched arm. It seemed to us that that work has progressed very little since then although we were told most of the work in the intervening years involved removing large amounts of stone from the mountain so detailed carving could continue. 18 years ago there was a visitor’s center and not much else. Now there is a large complex of buildings that include a gift shop, a museum, a restaurant, a school, and the home and studios where the project’s original artist, Korcazak Ziolkowski, and his family lived and worked. Unlike our previous visit there is now a full time, year round, crew that is dedicated to carving the mountain. The carving work is expected to take several lifetimes.
The mountain is easily seen from the main highway but can be seen in more detail from the memorial grounds. The cost is $15.00 per person to enter. Because the mountain is an active work site no one is permitted to walk up to the base for safety reasons. There are bus tours that, for $4.00 per person, will drive you up pretty close. We declined to wait an hour for the next bus.
It’s a very nice experience but after walking through the museum and taking a few pictures there isn’t too much to do. We went back because we were very curious to see what progress had been made. 18 years ago, when we took off from Rapid City Airport, we flew near the memorial and took some video out the cockpit window. Unfortunately, it’s stored away right now or I’d post it here.
Afterwards we decided to return to Wind Cave National Park. We’d been there to tour the cave but hadn’t seen much of the rest of the park. We took the scenic drive. As we approached the visitor’s center we noticed a large field with numerous holes. These belonged to the prairie dogs who lived there. We could see quite a few of them posing and scurrying around. They were very cute.
We stopped near a large field at one point and saw some mule deer. Three of them were eating grass very close to the road. In the distance, under a tree, we could see a bunch more. There were several babies among them.
As we turned a corner we found a huge male bison standing on the edge of the road. He was gorgeous and posing like he wanted his picture taken. We obliged him. We found another, even larger male, near a turnout. Just then a park ranger pulled an SUV over into the same turnout. We watched the bison dig up the ground and roll in the dirt before slowly walking into the pullout near the ranger. The ranger was busy talking to the driver but as soon as he noticed the bison he walked quickly over to the other side of the car. The bison just strolled through the lot, across the road, and into the field without giving any indication he cared that we were there.
Monday, July 3, 2022
This morning we made the two hour drive over to Badlands National Park. Just outside Custer a coyote tried to cross the road. It ran straight into the car in front of us. The car was not damaged but it did not end well for the coyote. It was a horrible sight. Like most of these trips we had expectations as to what we would see and we were wrong. The park did have the large grassy plains we’d expected but its name is derived from the unusual rock formations described as peaks and valleys of delicately banded colors that shift in the sunshine. These sedimentary rocks, formed when the ancient Western Inland Sea covered most of Western North America, contains many fossils, which are on display in the visitor’s center.
We took the scenic drive and stopped at several places to take short hikes. The most interesting hike, entitled The Door, was a walk over the rocks on a raised platform. The terrain reminded us of the surface of the moon. At the end of platform we were able to follow numbered stakes that lead us over the rocks to the edge of a large canyon that provided the perfect opportunity to take some pictures.
The map we’d gotten at the visitor’s center showed a number of things to do in the area. We’d known that there were some Minutemen Missile Silos in the State but didn’t realized that there were some we could tour so close to the park. Next we headed to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Visitor’s Center.
The visitor’s center had a nice little museum complete with an introductory movie describing the Minuteman Program, the concepts of Nuclear Deterrence, and Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD. South Dakota, and the entire Midwest for that matter, are littered with these missile silos. At one time there were over 1,000 active sites. Today the number is roughly half that. We were told that two of the nearby sites had been decommissioned and could be toured. The nearby Delta-01 Launch Control Facility could be seen only by reservation but Delta-09, just 15 miles away, had a self guided tour. We headed for Delta-09.
The site was just off the I-90 in the middle of nowhere. The road to the actual facility was over a hard packed gravel road. When we arrived there was a small building with informational posters and a parking lot. These were obviously added for the tourists. Nearby was a 1.7 mile square mile patch of ground where the missile silo could be found. The surrounding fencing still contained a warning about being shot on site for trespassing.
From our vantage point the silo site didn’t look like much. Most of the important workings were underground. This was just one of ten unmanned sites (flights) that would have been controlled from a nearby launch facility. There was a glass covering of the actual silo where we could see a dummy (exercise) missile. Also plainly visible was a high frequency antenna used for remote detonations, an access way used for manual maintenance, and a bunker containing generators, machinery, and air conditioning facilities. We also had the benefit of an audio tour via cell phone.
On the way back to Custer we stopped in Wall, SD at a place that was heavily advertised on the highway called Wall Drug. We figured it would be a very touristy site but we were in need of some bathrooms and some sustenance. It was only fifteen minutes away.
Wall Drug covered an entire city block and was lousy with tourists. The building included several gift shops, a cafe, a soda fountain, fresh donuts, western themed clothing and boot stores, and all sorts of others things to empty tourist’s wallets. We settled in at the soda fountain. They had several flavors of home made ice cream and soft serve. We got a vanilla sundae with caramel sauce and a chocolate malt with cherry flavoring. Both were very good.
