Day 9

Wednesday 9th May 2007 <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Today was our first day devoted solely to sight-seeing.  After breakfast, we booked another night in this extremely cheap but well-appointed motel, one of the America’s Best Value Inn chain, and then set off in search of Mt Rushmore, of the four presidential heads.  This was found with no difficulty, given the extensive signage on the way, and through beautiful hilly country.  The dark green conifers that I presume lend the Black Hills their name were leavened by fresh green growth on deciduous trees and outcrops of rugged granite. 

 

 

The road winds attractively through 17 miles of such country before arriving at the fabled mountain, which has a new visitors’ center, packed with patriotic themes such as the reasons for the carving of the heads, the great deeds of the presidents represented and the sacrifices of those responsible for establishing and extending America’s role in promoting freedom throughout the world. 

 

The four presidents are Washington, who founded the country, Jefferson, who “had the foresight” to make the Louisiana Purchase, Teddy Roosevelt, who established the National Park system and otherwise promoted rugged individualism, and Abraham Lincoln, who restored unity to the Union.  They were very picturesque in the cloudless sky, and set in relief by the mid-day sun, especially their eyes, which were very cunningly carved.  There was a beautifully filmed but rather leadenly produced and narrated film about the other side of Mount Rushmore – the natural beauty of the Black Hills and the ecological importance thereof. Mary also watched what she told me was an interesting video on how the carvings came about and the work that went into them over a period of some 40 or so years.

 

A parade of pillars carrying the flags of every member state and territory, together with their dates of admittance to the Union, where relevant, leads to a viewing platform above an amphitheatre and exhibition center.  This provided several photo-opportunities.  We also hit the information center where we bought 2 DVDs and a book about Crazy Horse.  The DVDs were one about the Civil War and one about Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse and the Black Hills.

 

After lunching on quite a good chilli for me and a rather inferior “chicken sandwich” for Mary, we left Rushmore and headed for Crazy Horse, stopping on the way to admire the profile of George Washington from a valley beside the mountain. 

 

 

Crazy Horse was another 17 miles into the Black Hills, towards Custer Forest.  This is a magnificent piece of work in progress, supported by a superb visitors’ center, consisting of exhibitions about Crazy Horse’s life and death, the lives of Sioux and other Plains Indians in general, and some of the other defenders of the Indian way of life such as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians of Idaho.  Similar to the Mt Rushmore exhibition, the Crazy Horse exhibition spends a lot of its capital on the tale of the sculptor who was invited to undertake the project by the tribal elders of the Lakota people.  He was a Polish American orphan, called Korczak Ziolkowski (visit http://www.crazyhorse.org/story/korczak.shtml for more information)  who had also worked for the lead sculptor of the Mt Rushmore carvings.  He began with virtually nothing ($174) and, with the eventual help of his wife and 10 children, the Sioux people and the generosity of donors, got as far as completing various models and blasting several thousand tons out of the mountain.  He died in 1982, 33 years after starting the project, in the initial stages on his own, and has been honoured by the Indians with the name Brave Heart, we think. Crazy Horse’s face was only completed by his family in 1998.  Now they’re working on blocking out the horse’s head and Crazy Horse’s  head feather (which will be 40 foot high).  The whole sculpture will be over 555 feet which will be taller than the Washington monument, which will make it the tallest memorial in America. It’s a grand tale of bloody-mindedness and devotion to a quasi-religious task in the face of almost insuperable problems.  They refuse to take any government funding and insist that their work remain a charitable act of faith toward the Indian peoples.

 

Some of the art on display was wonderful but we would have no way of getting it home safely with all our other stuff, so we didn’t buy any.  I did, however, have a pleasant chat with the Lakota author of a book about Crazy Horse, Ed McGaa, otherwise known as Man Eagle, and his daughter.  We ended up getting an extra pictographic autograph in the book and a warm handshake from this former Marine pilot.  Mary once more kindly paid for the book, as I was still cashless in the absence of any comforting acknowledgement from my bank of my communications concerning invalid transactions. We also took the bus tour to the bottom of the monument giving us another pictorial advantage, and also where we watched Marmots carvorting around and one sunning itself on the path.

 

Of course I had always fancied myself with an obedient partner so was pleased to be able to take this photo!!!

 

On the way home we popped into the Dances with Wolves (Fort Hayes) film set, but unfortunately the camera batteries had finally died after all the photos that had been taken, so we will try and re-visit there in the morning before we set off for pastures new.

 

Back down the mountains, in Rapid City, we stopped at a Wells Fargo drive-thru ATM and I risked my card once more.  This time it meekly coughed up my cash, so presumably whatever problem I’d had in Washington has now been resolved.

 

Today, our journeys were musicless, short as they were, through scenery that engaged us enough.  Yesterday, we were accompanied across S Dakota by John Martyn’s Grace and Danger, Bright Eyes’ Casadega, which fails to live up to its billing as Oberst’s answer to Blonde on Blonde, and SaRon Crenshaw’s Real Live in New York blues workouts, among other musical treats.  Having failed to negotiate the correct turn onto the I90 we ended up in Explorer Street and drove around a housing development of varying degrees of wealth and deprivation.

 

Tomorrow, we’ll head north to Deadwood for more tourist attractions (including Kevin Costner’s Tatanka) and maybe penetrate into Wyoming, destination Yellowstone – but that’s still some way away.  I expect that Mary’s iPod will rule the musical agenda once more.