Black Hills. Monuments and More! Westward Ho Part 4

Time to hit the Black Hills tourist trail.
Number one on the list, Mt Rushmore.

I had preconceived notions of what Mt Rushmore looked like. I knew the Presidents were carved upon a tall stone wall, and they were, but what I never imagined was that Mt Rushmore was a real mountain. Seeing the monument from a distance on top of that mountain was a revelation and as we walked up to monument, even though we knew what we were going to see, the size and clarity of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt carved in stone was incredible. This sum was more than the image. The power of the mountain transformed into visionary leaders on an incredible scale was inspiring. Being at Mt Rushmore was more than seeing Mt Rushmore. It was like standing at an alter to the United States. As Rome fell, so one day might the US, but Mt Rushmore will stand forever.



There's a great visitor center there. There's a film on the making of the monument, the sculptor's studio is open to the public and a terrific trail takes you down into the debris field under the monument. From here you get unique and inspiring views of each President.

























When you leave loop around to the left of the monument and you'll get this great profile of Washington from the road.

Mt Rushmore must be one of the most widely visited American monuments. We had toyed with the idea of starting the "license plate game", the game where you simply try to spy license plates form all 50 states as you travel the highways and byways. Pulling into the parking garage at Mt Rushmore blew that notion up. We literally saw all 50 states as we looked for a parking spot, including Alaska and Hawaii!

Saying goodbye to the Presidents we head towards another national monument. This time it's the Sioux Nation who is creating a monument to native peoples and their leaders by carving a likeness of the legendary Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse's head is so large all four President's on Mt Rushmore would fit in it! The final monument will not just be Crazy Horse's head however. He will sit astride his surging mount, hair blowing free, pointing towards the future. It'll probably take another 100 years to finish carving. I recommend a visit.

































Here's a model of the finished sculpture in front of the mountain being carved.






















There was a huge visitor center here too filled with information about the sculptor and a center for Native American arts. In front of the monument we watched a dance performance where the air was broken with the rhythmic beat of one drum accompanied by a high pitched native chant. Graceful dancers went trance like entering the personae of their totem animal in the eagle dance or buffalo dance.

Even though the monuments have been inspiring and thrilling we have a 12 year old with us who has other activities in mind. In the town of Keystone we tour the Big Thunder Gold mine. Founded by two German immigrants they dug this mine part time for over 30 years ... and never struck it rich. We panned for gold in Battle Creek filling two viles with souvenir gold flakes and we took a ride up the Rushmore Tramway so we could ride the Alpine Slide luge! The old mining towns turned tourist towns reminded us of towns we know in the Adirondack's like Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and Old Forge.



Heading back to our room at the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park we are once again immersed in a surreal and thrilling wildlife spectacle. Safe in our 2000 pound vehicle we get the extraordinary experience of being inside a Buffalo herd. Check it out.

Wildlife Loop Road, Custer State Park. Westward Ho Part 3

Excited by our Buffalo & antelope sightings the night before Molly & I are up at 5:30 AM to drive the Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park.


















Driving the loop to Rt 87 and back is at least a 30 mile round trip. The landscape is gorgeous rolling prairie grass hills and scattered forests. We had the road to ourselves. The rising sun was our constant companion, ever changing the color of the sky and landscape like a painter trying to entice us deeper and deeper into their fantasy. The sun threw out star bursts as it tried to climb above the earth while the opposing hills took on a radiance reflecting the golden grasses.



































The beauty of the dawn was enough to please but the Wildlife Loop did not disappoint. We saw Buffalo, Pronghorns, Mule Deer and Turkeys.









We stopped for breakfast at the Blue Bell Lodge. They say the Blue Bell Lodge is as comfortable as an old pair of blue jeans ...and it was. It's a beautiful log lodge, western style with field stone fireplaces, smooth logs and finished woods, well taken care of and polished. The interior shone in the morning light. We're up so early Molly & I have the place to ourselves. The food is good. Sausage, eggs and coffee. I can't resist sitting at the bar before we leave because the bar stools are horse saddles. :) Giddy up.

As we round the last bend in Rt 16A to get back to the State Game Lodge we encounter a huge surprise. The Buffalo herd has migrated into the State Game Lodge area and they are everywhere!



Back at the lodge it's time to get the boys out of bed. Today we tour the Black Hills!

Custer State Park, South Dakota. Westward Ho Part 2

We started to see hills in the distance as we crossed the border from Nebraska to South Dakota. The lodge pole pine covered hills look black from a distance, thus, the name Black Hills. General George Custer, a Lieutenant at the time, lead an expedition here that found gold in 1874. The gold rush that followed attracted prospectors and miners into what was Sioux Indian land. It spawned the legendary town of Deadwood where famed outlaws like Wild Bill Hickcock and Calamity Jane lived and now lie buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery. The gold rush was the beginning of the end for the nomadic Sioux as whites moved in and the government reneged on their treaties and took the Black Hills from them. Little did Custer know his discovery of gold was also the beginning of his end.

We didn't know what to expect here. I thought the area was going to be poor, rural, backward, desolate and dirty. I was wrong. It was absolutely gorgeous. For me it turned out to be the surprise of the trip.

As we made our way off the prairie and into the Black Hills the diversions started to multiply. We drove through the enticing town of Hot Springs where natural hot springs and fossilized mammoth bones beckoned. We didn't stop however. We'd been in the car about 9 hours so with blinders on I drive straight through Wind Cave National Park and a Wild Mustang Refuge focused on getting to the Custer State Park Game Lodge before dark.

As soon as we got on Rt87 the magic started. Buffalo. A solitary Buffalo. Wow, what a majestic creature....and huge! Solid, broad shouldered, head down, horns curling outward, black inky eyes following us as we pass. I hoped we see Buffalo. Little did I know, we'd see a lot. Over the course of the next two weeks we'd see a couple thousand but we never, and I mean all four of us, never lost the thrill of seeing or being in a herd of Buffalo.


Here we are on Rt87 entering Custer State Park. This is literally where the Buffalo roam and the deer and antelope play.









When we finally got to the State Game Lodge it was dark. The lodge was woodsy. It had a great porch and field stone fireplaces. Presidents Coolidge and Eisenhower used it as summer White House's. We squeaked in just under the wire for dinner service and dined on Buffalo, Elk, Venison and local trout. What'd you expect at the Game Lodge? They had a wonderful wine list too that Molly & I partook of after which we all went gently into the night and slumber.

NE Colorado & Western Nebraska - Westward Ho Part 1

We're in virgin territory. We're traveling the northern plains and the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. This is home to the fabled Wild West and the great Indian tribes of the Sioux, Pawnee and Cheyenne. It's also home to the legends of Wild Bill Hickcock, Calamity Jane, General George Custer and Buffalo Bill. And, it's the landscape of the tuneful "Give me a home where the Buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play". I'll become my own Buffalo Bill as I explore one of the great landscapes of the world.




On the east coast our world is framed by the environment. The urban and suburban developments, the trees and forests. We have to look up to see the sky. That framing is flipped on it's head out west. The Great Plains are framed by the sky. Everything else is subservient.


Traveling on the plains our existence shrinks to ant-like proportions. We revel in the solitude. We're captured in euphoric gaze at the stratospheric billowing clouds painting the heavens. We're in awe of the pioneers and the travelers of the Oregon Trail. On every ridge I expect to see a line of Sioux sitting majestic on their painted ponies surveying us as friend or foe. I think of two of my favorite movies, Dances With Wolves and Pow Wow Highway and love that I have entered their landscapes.























Cutting through the plains are gully's, gulches washouts and mini-canyons. Striations of sediment stripe the exposed earth and give color to the golden grasslands. Occasionally in western Nebraska buttes & bluffs rise from nowhere. These were significant landmarks for the great western migrations of the Oregon and Mormon Trails. I think of Bonanza and every cowboy movie I've ever seen as grass, sage and prickly pear cactus roll away from a gulch back towards a distant towering butte.







At desperately empty crossroads on the oceans of prairie we find abandoned cars patina'd to desirable finishes and ghosted homesteads standing as monuments to a past generations life's work.










It's not void of life out here though. There are a few homesteads, huge cultivated farms and even larger grazing lands with Texas Longhorns and Black Angus. Freight trains too cut across the landscape, their orange engines cutting a striking figure against the deep blue sky.



































We flew into Denver from Boston and spent our first night in Boulder Colorado. In the morning we headed east, the Rockies receding and diminishing in our review mirror. Our goal was to get out on the plains. We head north through the Pawnee National Grasslands ...on a dirt road. Very cool and adventurous. We collected bugs on our windshield and streamed a billowing plume of dust as we broke the silence of the nothingness.





Somewhere in the middle of nowhere we find our road washed out. What do we do? We go for it!






Further on we inconspicuously entered western Nebraska. We had no idea where we were but as long as I kept the sun on my left I knew we were heading north and we'd eventually run into Rt 80. We did, and continued to head north to the Oregon Trail landmark of Scott's Bluff where we took a slight detour east. We passed Courthouse Rock and Chimney Rock on our way to the town of Alliance to see the infamous Carhenge, a recreation of Stonehenge made out of cars!





With the sun arcing downward on the western horizon and satisfied with our first day's explorations we make haste for South Dakota. We know we're getting close when we hear the strains of Lakota tribal chanting on a radio station broadcasting from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Welcome to South Dakota.