South Dakota, Rapid City - Thursday, July 5, 2018 - Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park

Obviously we are not from an area that has mountains.  It never occurred to us that this heavy cloud cover would obscure some of the things we wanted to see today up in the mountains.

We’ll go through lots of tunnels on our trip today.

We plan on stopping at Mt. Rushmore tomorrow, but couldn’t resist a few pictures of what we could see as we drove by.

The sculptor, Korczak Zeolkowski, received a letter from Chief Henry Standing Bear asking him to come to the sacred Black Hills to carve a memorial honoring a Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse.  He said he and his fellow chiefs “would like the white people to know the red man has great heroes also”.  The Mt. Rushmore carvings had just been completed at this time.

Korczak Zeolkowski began work on the Crazy Horse Memorial in 1947 with a total of $147.  After his death in 1982 his wife and ten children continued work on the mountain carving and the educational goals established by Korczak.  His wife, Ruth, supported the Dream from the beginning and assisted in multiple facets of it.  The two even went to the extent of outlining the sculpture on the mountain with six foot wide lines using 164 gallons of paint to help visitors envision the future.  Korczak was hanging off the mountain painting the lines while Ruth was a mile away directing his work.

Korczak wanted the Crazy Horse Memorial to eventually include a university, medical center and museum for the Indians of North America.  The museum and university are already in existence today. 

The Crazy Horse Memorial was dedicated June 3, 1948.

We thought the $24 admission fee was a little steep until we found out that Zeolkowski operated on a strong belief in free enterprise.  The project is now and has always been funded by visitor entrance fees and donations.  No state or federal funds go into this project.  Knowing that, it seems reasonable and it did include parking.

You can only get face-to-face with all 87.5 feet of Crazy Horse’s face by taking a special tour.  If we were looking at the right info that tour was going to cost a little over $100 per person.  We were satisfied with looking at his profile.

Just after I got this picture, this happened.

The 40,000 sf. Welcome Center/Museum has lots of knotty pine.  Pines trees are in abundance around here so it is probably readily available. 

Lots of interesting items are on display in the museum.

This two dimensional warrior mask painting by Donald F. Montileaux, from Rapid City was one of my favorites.

The men who were chosen to go to war would enter the sweat lodge for a ceremony.  The men were given painted masks and the power that went with them by an elder of the tribe.  The warriors left prepared to face the enemy and to do things that they would not normally do.

When they returned each man entered the sweat lodge again and returned the mask and its powers to the elder.  The men exited this ceremony cleansed of the acts of war and able to walk the good road once more.

If you’ve read my previous posts you know that the beading projects completed by Indian women just amaze me.  Well look at this!

These Italian glass beads were a gift from Ray Hillenbrand (who owns Prairie Edge in Rapid City).  The beads are from the same guild that supplied fur traders in the 19th century.  When Societa Veneziana Conterie in Italy closed its door, Mr. Hillenbrand acquired all of the remaining inventory, over 70 tons of beads.

The beads used in Indian beadwork arrived on the Plains in the early 1800’s.  For a while the glass beads were used in conjunction quillwork.  Quillwork is a sacred art using porcupine quills to make designs.  In the mid 1840’s “seed” beads became more readily available and quillwork all but disappeared.

During lunch at the on-site restaurant the clouds cleared enough that we could enjoy the view of Crazy Horse for a while.

This is a 1/34 scale model of what the finished project should look like.

The scenery of the Black Hills is beautiful.

These tunnels could make me a little apprehensive if we had a larger vehicle.  If you pay attention to brochures about the area you know ahead of time that there are restricted space tunnels, but if you don’t pay attention and just decide to take a drive through the Black Hills you could be in for a rude awakening because only two of these tunnels have by-passes and you have to know about them ahead of time to take advantage of them.

We stopped just briefly at Sylvan Lake.  The temperatures were only in the mid-60’s today with a very brisk breeze.

This is Needle’s Eye tunnel.  It is 8’4” wide and 11’3” high.

Our first really good wildlife picture!

More Needles Highway scenery.

The Custer State Park Visitor Center opened in 2016.  It was here that we found out where we might be most likely to find buffalo.  We had to laugh at the park ranger talking to folks there.  One guy was obviously a motorcycle rider.  She cautioned him that it is rutting season for buffalo right now.  So, if the buffalo block his way on the road, don’t rev his engine to make them move – it sounds like a buffalo mating call and the buffalo would probably take him out.

The pond in front of the visitor center has a nice picnic area.

These purple flowers have been in abundance along our drive today.

Some Iron Mountain Road scenery.

Ponderosa pines are the main trees in this area.

Once again, Mt. Rushmore pops up where you least expect it.

Heading home, what a wonderful day.