My preconceptions of South Dakota come from 1) a PBS documentary of the making of Mt. Rushmore and 2) Bruce Springsteen's song Badlands and Springsteen mumbles so much that it's hard to get much from the song. (Believe it or not, Badlands actually came on the radio while we were driving this morning.) So I guess I expected southern South Dakota to be ugly or extreme, like maybe Death Valley, but it was pleasant, miles of prairie, hills and farms--a lot like the Sacramento Valley, but fewer trees. One thing we saw a lot of, though, was billboards.
There may be no drugstore in the world with more billboards than South Dakota's Wall Drug. Someone had told us in Indiana to expect this billboard phenomenon, but we'd forgotten about it, till we started seeing cryptic billboards for the drugstore as early as Minnesota, with signs that just said, "See Wall Drug." Billboards are extremely hard for me to photograph from the moving RV, but here are a few I captured (no two of their signs were alike):
So we stopped in the miniscule town of Wall, on the way to Rapid City, and saw the enormous Wall Drug. Apparently it was a regular drug store begun around 1920, but when the depression occured, the store almost failed. Then the owner's wife suggested they offer free ice water to travellers, and advertise it with billboards. The drugstore was saved and the billboard phenomenon had begun. Big signs and little, handpainted and professional, specific and cryptic, but all different. During WW2, a G.I. in Paris made a sign saying how far it was to Wall Drug from there. A picture of that sign is in the Wall Drug ice cream parlor, along with similar pictures from all around the world. Here is the most extreme one I saw:
Wall Drug is now a huge tourist store, ice cream parlor, restaurant, chapel, playground, museum, etc. It is by far the biggest thing in little Wall. I really enjoyed seeing their hundreds of 19th century western photographs, depicting life in South Dakota. Here are a few:
Here's some guys around the chuck wagon. I love old chuck wagons the way I love the old Airstream trailors. And this next one shows how they cleverly used their canvas wagon covers as shade covers (soo clever):
Here someone is reading the Declaration of Independence to the local Native Americans:
Nearby, ironically, here are the whites persuading the indigenous people here to give up their lands (independence for us, not you guys, I guess):
So we ate ice cream and bought a Wall Drug fridge magnet, and looked at the Wall Drug animatronic dinosaur (an angry T Rex behind a high wooden fence, a la Jurassic Park), and then we were on our way to Rapid City again. Here is our spot at the Berry Patch, a campground near the highway, but with good views of the hills. It wasn't bad, but not worth the 4 stars Woodalls gave it.
Friday, July 29
Today was our big sightseeing day in this area; tomorrow we'll go see my girlfriend Heide and her family. And boy did we sightsee. We saw five different attractions in one day, and lots of great wildlife. We started at a drive-thru wildlife park. It was smaller than I expected, but that way you are truly guaranteed to see everything.
The animals are divided into groups that won't kill each other. The arctic wolves were by themselves (I guess they kill everything else):
We couldn't figure out what these guys were eating. You might notice that all of the pictures are taken from inside our car. There were strict rules that you cannot leave your car or even roll down your windows. Boy did I want to (I bet everyone does), but I didn't. After the wolves, there were bighorn sheep and antelope, and then we approaced the bears. As you enter the bear area, there is a huge sign stating all the rules, and "if you should experience engine failure, do not leave your automobile. Remain in the car and honk your horn repeatedly until help comes." gulp.
But apparently, visitors follow the rules, because there were over a hundred black bears in the area (the grizzlies are kept seperate), and some of them wandered around on the roads but none approached the cars at all. (I imagine that if folks did roll down their windows, the bears would figure out right away that we were carrying our picnics with us.) In fact, most of the bears didn't even look our way. Here was one who came the closest to our car (he got within about a yard):
I loved seeing his winter coat lingering around.
We also saw bison, but they didn't look our way and sort of hid in some trees. Then we parked and walked over to their "baby" area, which was more like a traditional zoo. They have a big area for the baby bears, my favorite. I got to ask this girl tons of questions about the bears. This little one is five months old, and kept playing around her legs:
The babies were very playful with each other, and I could have watched them for hours, but we had a lot to see, so we headed out to find a picnic spot for lunch. We got a great one:
It was woodsy and hilly and cool up here, with other families at their little tables nearby, and a trail you could take to see some views. I had the distinct feeling that this picnic spot epitomized the "American family roadtrip" for me: a sweet spot to stop your car and eat your lunch out in the woods in a pretty, cool location. After lunch, we drove past Mt. Rushmore, and I got this neat over-the-shoulder shot of George:
We'll come back to the monument tonight to see it all lit up. Next stop: Crazy Horse monument.
I didn't know anything about the Crazy Horse monument, and wasn't even going to see it, but Heide said to and Mark was interested, and it worked out to be on our way. It turned out to be the most moving attraction I have seen in a long time. Here it is:
to give you an idea of size, all four faces of Mt. Rushmore would fit in the light colored area behind Crazy Horse's face (where his hair will be someday).
It's a lot bigger than Rushmore, and being built soooo much slower. It is not a federal site, unlike it's famous neighbor, but instead has a very interesting story behind it.
In the early 20th century, there was a young Polish sculptor named Korczak, who won first place for sculpture at the 1935 World's Fair, and went on to assist Borlum, the sculptor who designed Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore was originally envisioned to commemorate the heroes of the West, such as Lewis & Clark and Crazy Horse, but the original concept was changed to the presidents, to give it universal appeal and federal funding. The Native Americans, for whom the Black Hills area is pregnant with sacred meaning and tragic history, wanted a memorial to their heroes too, and so a Sioux leader went to Korczak and asked if he would build them one. The year was 1947, and Korczak was 37 years old. He was moved by the idea of telling their story, so he travelled to the Black Hills and spent a week camping there, and decided to take on the project, a sculpture of Crazy Horse. At first, Korczak thought he would make a sculpture 100 feet high. That would be impressive. Then he thought some more: 100 feet is nothing out here where the mountains are so big, the trees so tall. Instead, he would use a whole mountain. There were no pictures of Crazy Horse, but elders who had known him described him to Korczak, and the sculptor created his first model, out of a local ponderosa pine:
They liked it, so he went out into their land and began, singlehandledly, to create a huge sculpture of Crazy Horse for them. Let me tell you a little bit about how difficult the work was...
Rushmore was chiseled to within four inches of the face by dynamite, because there is so much granite to remove. It took dozens of men with federal funding, and with electrical jackhammers and drills decades to complete it. Well, this guy had only himself to do the work, and less than $200 to his name, so he started by spending two years cutting down trees to build himself a tiny cabin and hundreds of stairs to get him up to the mountain. Here is the staircase:
He was using a hand pick that he would hammer three or four feet into the rock, then drop in a stick of dynamite to blast. As time went by, he bought an ancient generator to run a jackhammer, and he'd haul a 50-pound line up to the top to run the jackhammer to make the holes to stuff the dynamite into. Dynamite was expensive, so he couldn't buy lots of it, but that wasn't his only problem. His generator would frequently stop, and he'd have to climb back down all the stairs to the bottom, crank it by hand to get it to start again, then climb back up to drill some more. He said one day he had to repeat that process nine times. Here he is, about ten years into the project:
Looks like a crazy old prospector to me. He had a great sense of humor about the project, though, and if you go see the monument, you can see a great movie about him. He was the only one working out there, but as people started hearing about the project, folks started coming out to see, and he'd get donations to help him purchase supplies. He fell in love with a woman 18 years his junior, and they married and had 10 kids! The girls helped Mom with the visitors and the boys helped Dad with the heavy work.
The family had offers to turn this into a federal project like Rushmore, but, despite the lucrative money that would have meant, they refused, because they wanted the Native Americans to have this project turn out the way they wanted it to, and not have the government change it on them. The project, if it is ever finished, will be more than just a statue: there are plans for educational centers and cultural centers for Native American learning on the vast property. And although the work is going extremely slowly (as you might imagine), it seems that they care more about the process than just the end. Korczak died back in the 60s, but left detailed plans which his sons now follow. I was inspired and amazed by this family's project.
Here is a larger model of the finished sculpture, with the actual mountain in the background:
You can see the head now, and the arm, and a tunnel (ten stories high) through which bulldozers drive to push stone out of the way. The tunnel will eventually be widened to be the hole under Crazy Horse's arm.
And here is Katie standing in front of the model:
They have collected all sorts of Native American artifacts, such as these beads that may be authentic (a newspaper article suggests that there is some doubt):
And they have built a beautiful visitor's center. Here is the back patio, which has a waterfall at the end and a nice fountain in the foreground:
Clearly it is all a labor of love. They even let you take a rock from the pile that was blasted away, as a souvenier to remember the mountain by. I selected a small one, and also bought a DVD about the history of the project, to send to my relatives out West. I was so glad we stopped to see this place.
Next on the agenda was Wind Cave National Park. Katie fell asleep after Crazy Horse, so we didn't take a cave tour this time, but walked out to see the natural entrance, and feel the wind coming from it (the cave is always 53 degrees, so it was like standing in front of an air conditioner). Here's the sign:
The opening is about 20 inches tall, but it's like standing in front of a fan. The cave itself is the most complex in the US, with over 150 miles of charted passageways, all located within only 1/4 square mile of prairie (maybe the size of our neighborhood development at home). And geologists think that they have only charted five to ten percent of the cave. That boggles my mind.
But maybe the best thing about Wind Cave NP was the bison herd. When the park was created, there were very few bison left, and someone thought of relocating some to the park, since it was once part of their old stomping ground. It worked great. (they also relocated elk and white-tailed antelope) We saw huge numbers of the massive animals, some quite close to us. Here is one picture:
Gosh, I now realize that they are too small to see in this picture. I wish I had a good close-up. I'll try to find one. Here are some of the other animals at Wind Cave:
The antelope kept dying off, but apparently they're doing well right now. These were only ten feet from the car, but they never moved while we took their pictures.
These are a mommy wild burro and her foal, who is nursing. Oddly enough, you are allowed to feed the burros, since for generations folks here have done so (and eventually the park service gave up on trying to stop them), and so the animals will come right up to you or your vehicle. We didn't feed or pet them, but we saw lots of folks doing it.
We drove out of Wind Cave NP and straight into General Custer State Park, which has a wildlife loop where you are supposed to see lots of bison and other wild animals. Oddly enough, though, we didn't see any bison at all there (although we smelled a very strong smell of bison near the entrance, and later heard that the herd was supposed to be around there). We did see lots more antelope and wild turkeys. Then we drove up a beautiful road (Iron Mountain road), which included a few narrow tunnels like this:
We made it to Mt. Rushmore by 7pm, at the end of a little thunderstorm. There was a double rainbow visible when we drove up to the parking lot. It may have been the prettiest rainbow I've ever seen, and dozens of folks were gawking at it and saying the same thing. The outer band (and the majesty of it) didn't come through on film, but here it is:
I thought, wow, we get to see an amazing rainbow and Mt. Rushmore at the same time (if you turned 180 degrees, there was the mountain).
The facilities at Mt. Rushmore are the classiest I've seen at any monument anywhere. Lots of granite walkways, an outdoor hallway with all the states' flags lining it, and a very nice cafeteria with an amazing view (not the Katie part, the background):
We wandered around and saw the exhibits, and Mark hiked a nature hike, while Katie and I got seats in the huge amphitheater, which filled up completely (with thousands of people) for the lighting ceremony. Patriotic music was playing for an hour or so before the ceremony, then a ranger came out and asked us trivia questions about the presidents, then we saw a movie on a huge outdoor screen, and finally they lit the monument:
It was very beautiful in the golden light, and I'm glad we got to see it that way.
Saturday, July 30
Today was our day to see my best friend Heide Noblitt. Her husband Bob is in the Air Force, and was stationed at Travis Air Force Base when I was in college, where Heide ad I met. After that they lived up in Anchorage awhile, and now he's stationed in Rapid City, and I finally get to see her. She flew down from Alaska to be my Maid of Honor for my wedding, and her sister even did my hair for me (a great job, Sandy!). It has been about six years since I've seen her and her kids, so she has never even met Katie. I couldn't wait to see her
Unfortunately, I picked the exact same weekend to show up as her entire family did, visiting her from all over the U.S. She had 16 relatives coming over (most of them staying at Heide's house), arriving on Friday, then us visiting on Saturday. Earlier in the week, I kept asking on the phone, "is there anything I can bring with me, like a dessert or something?" and she kept saying, "nope--I have no idea what we are doing yet, and so I can't tell you anything." Also she disclosed that their septic tank had started leaking into their yard (they discovered this six days before everyone was to arrive) so she wasn't sure if their bathrooms would be working. I was worried that she was stressed about the whole thing, and I really hoped we wouldn't be in the way. Thank God my fears were all wrong.
Once we got there, we found that the atmosphere was laid back and everyone was having a good time. The septic problem had been fixed, and many of the relatives were out shopping. We had most of the afternoon to just chat and have fun with Heide and her folks and her two kids. Here are Rachel and Thomas. I can't believe I knew Heide before she was even pregnant with them. I remember her coming to class very pregnant with Rachel, having to scoot past dozens of seated students with her huge tummy to get to me in the big auditoriums at UCD.
My memories of Thomas are of him as a little guy, following his big sister around. He was just as sweet back then as he is today. They are both exceptional kids, like their mom. I remember writing a little story for each of them when they were little, and making a wagon for them out of an old wooden 7-Up crate. They were the first kids I knew in my grown-up life, and so they'll always be special to me.
One of the best things about Heide is her sense of humor. She is a great storyteller with a very sharp wit. Here she is after firing off a zinger, possibly aimed at Rachel (in the background):
Also I remember spending time with Heide's wonderful parents (whom I still only know as Mr. and Mrs. Martinez). Heide's mom is from Germany, and her dad is from the Texas border with Mexico. They always had wonderful fruits growing in their Vacaville yard (I remember finding out how many apricots you can eat before you get sick), and they always had a funny story to tell about their five daughters. Her mom is very take-charge. Here she is trying to keep the four packages of spaghetti from overflowing from the pot (Heide had no way of knowing they'd swell that much):
Katie and I returned on Sunday, and between cooking, Heide told Katie a Peter Rabbit story. Katie was enrapt.
Heide's dad found some sod to move around to give him some exercise (both her parents are very active, outdoors people), and afterwards, he came in and relaxed with us awhile. He was so patient with Katie that he helped her overcome her fear of the many dogs there.
It was such a fun time, I really didn't want to say goodbye. Heide and I laughed as much as we used to, just as easy with each other as if it had been yesterday. It will probably be years before we see each other again. I will miss her and her folks.
Monday: we're driving to Wyoming. woo-haa!