May 30, 2013: The Badlands of South Dakota
	May 28, 2013: Rapid City and Mt. Rushmore
	Return to the Ruckman Haus Photo Gallery Page

On Wednesday, we'd planned a day with Guy driving through Custer State Park, going to see the Crazy Horse Monument, and, for the benefit of Ron and Prudence, visiting again the town of Custer, SD. Guy will have to drive back to Chamberlain this evening, so we planned a fairly early dinner. The four of us will stay one more night, and visit the Badlands on our own way back to Chamberlain tomorrow.

A Drive Through Custer State Park

After we had a really nice breakfast at the Microtel, we piled into the Ruckman's Acura and headed south on Highway 79 to come to the east entrance of Custer State Park.

Acting as navigator, I wanted to route us along Highway 16A through the park, a highway Fred and I had driven before. There is great scenery and lots of tunnels and bridges.

It would bring us northwest to end in Keystone, near Mt. Rushmore. Then, we'd follow Highway 244 around the back side of Rushmore and over to US Highway 385. We might take a detour to Hill City, but then we'll head south and stop at the Crazy Horse National Monument, which we've wanted to see for quite a while.

Finally, we'll take Ron and Prudence into Custer, SD, and let them wander around that picturesque town for a while before heading back to Rapid City.

So, we headed down to the east entrance to the park via Highway 79. We were treated to nice views of the mountains in Custer SP. We turned into the park and then north on Highway 16A- following the route I'd suggested. Our first actual stop was at an overlook on the crest of the ridge from which we could see Mt. Rushmore off in the distance.

We stopped at the turnout that you can see in the aerial view at right; I've even marked the National Forest sign you can see in the picture below:

We all got out at the overlook and wandered around taking pictures and enjoying the cool morning. I made a movie as everyone was reading the signs and looking over towards Mt. Rushmore in the distance. You can watch that movie with the player below, left.

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Fred took a number of interesting pictures here at the overlook, many of them looking northwest off in the distance towards Mt. Rushmore (which you had to use substantial zoom to see clearly). You can use the clickable thumbnails below to see some of these pictures:

As I am fond of doing, I tried my hand at a panorama, putting five different pictures together. Fred happened to move between two of the pictures, so that's why he shows up twice:

If you scroll back up a bit and look at our route, you'll see our next stop- Tunnel #3 (There are six or seven tunnels on the various roads through Custer State Park.)

When we approached the first tunnel on our drive, there were a few other cars stopped on the nearside of it, and people had gotten out to walk around. I could see immediately that there was an easy way up to the top of the tunnel where I could get some good views, I thought. And of course I always like to scramble up rocks and stuff to get up onto a high perch. So I left everyone else and went around the left side of the tunnel and climbed up the rocks to the top. I didn't know it at the time, but Fred snapped a picture of me beginning my scramble up the rocks.

When I got to the top, I found that there were indeed wonderful views- both out across the Black Hills and, of course, back down to where everyone was looking up at me. In fact, Fred used his zoom to photograph me on top of the tunnel.

As I was coming back down to rejoin the group, Fred walked closer to get a nice picture of Tunnel 3. Then we piled back into the car and headed off to see more of the Park.

Once we had driven through the tunnel and reached the point a short ways down the road to the curve, we found that the road was pointed directly at Mt. Rushmore, so there was an opportunity for Fred to get a picture of Mt. Rushmore through the windshield. Then, as the car turned the curve, he used his zoom to get a really nice view of Mt. Rushmore, and you can have a look at that picture here.

We drove about a mile further on, following the beautiful highway as it snaked through the forest. Then we came to a large parking area for the Norbeck Overlook. The overlook was named for the engineer who designed both the scenic highways that wind through Custer State Park. You can read about the effort involved in building the highway and the engineer responsible by using the link below:

We parked the car and we all got out to read the signs you saw above and wander over to the overlook itself, which consisted of a walkway to the overlook as well as a long rock face that you could climb on for views of the valley in front of you.

From the overlook, of course, there was a beautiful view of Mt. Rushmore, and both Fred and I took pictures of that view. With his excellent zoom, Fred was able to get a better picture than I did, and you can see his here. I took a normal view, framing the mountain with the nearby trees, and you can see that picture below:

From the overlook, Fred, Guy and I walked over to what appeared to be a rocky ridge, and we wanted to climb up and have a look.

The ridge turned out to be a cliff face, perhaps thirty feet high, from the top of which there were beautiful views in all directions- including down. Below are clickable thumbnails you can use to see some of the pictures that Fred and I took from the top of the ridge and of the "natural bridge" that was a part of it:

We also made some panoramic views. Fred used his camera's automatic features to create this one:

I did the same thing, although I had to take a series of pictures and stitch them together afterwards. I thought you might be interested in seeing both the original pictures and the panoramic result; this will give you some idea of what the program that stitches pictures together has to do to match them up where they overlay each other. Once it does that, since I am never holding the camera at exactly the same height for all the pictures, I usually have to crop out the usable image. This time, I wasn't off by much. So below you will see five the original pictures in the first row, and then the resulting panoramic view by itself on the row beneath:

You can see that as I was taking the pictures from right to left, I seemed to be raising the camera on a slope, for the program had to lose more and more of the pictures as it moved to the left stitching them together. When I cropped the resulting image, I lost those areas.

When we left the overlook, we continued along the scenic highway, going through a second straight tunnel. Then, after driving through a section where the road had split into two one-way sections for about a mile, we came around a set of curves to the third tunnel.

This tunnel is nicknamed "the pigtail" because of the way the road curves around. The only way to explain the tunnel is to look at it in an aerial view, and I've supplied one at left, marking the route the car took. We entered the tunnel from the northwest and when we came out at the southeast end, we were actually on a bridge over the continuation of the highway below. Coming off the bridge, the road descends in a complete circle to come back around under the same bridge. As we came around the south side of this circle, Fred leaned out the window to show you the bridge we just crossed.

After we came around under the bridge heading north, we stopped at the side of the road to get some pictures. Fred got an interesting one of the bridge as it begins at the end of the tunnel, and you can see that picture here. And I took a couple of good pictures from down below the bridge; there are clickable thumbnails below that you can use to have a look at them:

I wanted to get up on the bridge to get a picture or two, so I scrambled up the hillside to the roadway and walked out onto the bridge. There, I got a picture looking down at the group. While I was doing that, Fred was taking a picture of me from down below, and you can see that picture here.

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Since I was up here on the bridge, I thought I would walk into the tunnel a ways to see what it was like.

As I was walking across the bridge towards the tunnel, I took a couple of pictures of it, and there are clickable thumbnails at left for these pictures.

This particular tunnel is actually two short tunnels with an open space in the middle, and I wanted to see what it was like inside (as we couldn't stop in the middle of it when we drove through). As I walked into the tunnel and into the open space in the middle, I made a movie, and you can watch that movie with the player at right.

As the movie shows you, when I got to the middle of the tunnel I found that I could get back to the car by going through that open space to the northeast, scrambling down the hillside to the road below, and then walking back up the road a hundred feet or so to the car. I just made a big circle. The excursion was fun, but as soon as I got back to the car everyone was ready to head off.

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We continued down the Iron Mountain Highway towards Mt. Rushmore; it was a very pretty drive (as it had been six years ago when Fred and I drove it for the first time). There are a couple of places where the road has to descend quickly in a short space, and Norbeck's solution was to use another variant of the pigtail, with the road making two complete circles as it descends. I made a movie as we drove through one of these "pig tails," and you can watch it with the player at left. You can also see an aerial view of the pigtail below:

We came off the Iron Mountain Highway near Keystone, and turned west to go past Mt. Rushmore on its south side, heading over to US Highway 385 and the Crazy Horse Monument.

We were actually on the same road we'd been on last night when we came down for the lighting ceremony, but the difference was that now it was light, and we could see the sculpted faces on the Rushmore Memorial- something we couldn't do last night. We stopped to admire the view, and I took a couple of pictures that you can have a look at using the clickable thumbnails at left.

As we came around a bit closer to the Memorial, Fred got a really good picture of the four Presidents. There was something else we wanted Prudence and Ron to see along this road- the view of the Washington face in profile. Highway 244 comes around the west side of the mountain and when it does, you find a parking area for the view of the Washington face. You can see the parking area and the face ahead of us here.

When we stopped to get out and have a look, Fred used his excellent zoom to get an excellent picture of Washington's profile. Click on the image below to expand to full size:

We continued down the highway towards US 385 and after a few miles we came to a complex that included a hotel, campground, RV park, restaurant, shops and horserides. We hadn't had any lunch, so we stopped in and had lunch at the Ponderosa Restaurant. It was an interesting lunch, mostly due to the weird wine list that the restaurant had. After lunch, we walked around the shops and the stables for a bit, just taking pictures.

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I made one movie after lunch- nothing really unusual, just a walk along the line of horses waiting for trail riders. You can watch that movie with the player at left.

Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the pictures we took here in the restaurant and walking around after lunch:

A short while later, we reached US 285 and we headed south towards the Crazy Horse National Monument.

The Crazy Horse Memorial

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument complex that is under construction on privately held land. It will depict Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance.

In 1929, Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, wrote to the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, saying in part, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too." The American sculptor had worked on Mount Rushmore in 1924 under Gutzon Borglum. Standing Bear and Ziolkowski scouted potential monument sites together; Ziolkowski suggested carving the memorial in the Wyoming Tetons where the rock was better for sculpting, but the Sioux leader insisted it be carved in the Black Hills, which are sacred to Lakota culture. After making models, Ziolkowski started blasting for the monument in 1948.

The memorial is a non-profit undertaking; the owner of the complex- the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation- charges fees for its visitor centers and earns revenue from its gift shops. Ziolkowski died in 1982, but his family (including his wife Ruth and seven of their ten children) and associates have carried on the work. Indeed, their daughter Monique Ziolkowski, a sculptor, has modified some of her father's plans to make the sculpture work better. In 1998, the face of Crazy Horse was completed and dedicated.

The Motherland Calls

The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high. The monument is still far from completion. If it is completed according to its plans, it may become the world's largest sculpture, as well as the first non-religious statue to hold this record since 1967. The current record-holder is the Soviet monument "The Motherland Calls." (seen at right)

Note:
When The Motherland Calls was dedicated in 1967 it was the tallest sculpture in the world, measuring 279 feet from the tip of its sword to the top of the plinth. For comparison, the figure itself is some 20 feet taller than the statue of liberty (including her torch), but the entire sculpture, including the sword, is over 100 feet taller. Unlike Lady Liberty, the sculpture is made of reinforced concrete- 8000 tons of it.

The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles from Mount Rushmore.

We drove in through the entrance from US Highway 385, paid our carload admission of $27, and parked in the huge lot near the Visitor Center.

We weren't quite sure what all we would see, but now I can say that we (1) stopped first at some outdoor sculpture, (2) walked through the Indian Museum, (3) stopped on the patio where the model of the monument is located and from which nice views of the memorial in the distance are possible, (4) walked through the museum devoted to the sculptor and his family, and (5) visited the Indian Art Center. We took lots of pictures in all these places, so let's have a look.

Outdoor Sculpture

Before we went into the Visitor Center, Fred and I walked over to an outdoor area that had some sculpture and what looked like a huge set of wrought iron gates. These, we found, were the Black Hills Nature Gates. They were more impressive than they might look in that picture. I got up close to them and took a series of four pictures, stitching them together into this panorama:

The rectangular lattice of the gates are filled with gold-colored metal fauna and flora; these are attached to the framework but are cutouts of a very large number of different ones. Fred, of course, located the buffalo, and you can see that in the sections surrounding it there are other, different animals and plants. Nearby, there were two large sculpture installations. One was a life-size copy of one of Ziolkowski's most famous pieces- " Fighting Stallions". He actually did a number of pieces with this title, but this is the largest. While the picture you just saw of this piece is probably the best, you can get a different perspective on it with another of my pictures here. On the lawn near this sculpture was another, whose title I cannot locate. It is of an Indian and his fallen horse.

In the Indian Museum

From the Nature Gates, we headed over to the Visitor Center and went inside. The building did house the information desk and a theatre where a movie about the memorial is shown continually throughout the day, but most of the large, muilti-story building is given over to the Indian Museum of North America.

The Indian Museum of North America is home to an extraordinary collection of art and artifacts reflecting the diverse histories and cultures of the American Indian people. The museum, designed to complement the story being told in stone on the mountain, speaks eloquently to present and future generations about American Indian life. The museum collection started out with a single display donated in 1965 by Charles Eder, Assiniboine-Sioux, from Montana. Mr. Eder’s impressive collection remains on display in a place of honor in the Orientation and Welcome Center at Crazy Horse Memorial.

Close to 90 percent of the museum collection has been donated, both by Native Americans and non-Natives. Many individuals and families have decided that the Indian Museum of North America is where their American Indian artifacts and art should find a permanent home.

Korczak designed the museum, and his family built it during the harsh winter of 1972-73 when no work was possible on the mountain. In keeping with Korczak’s do-it-yourself philosophy, the family did all aspects of the construction, holding cost to a minimum. The museum incorporated Korczak’s love of wood and natural lighting. The museum was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1973. On that particular May 30th, there was still 6 feet of snow on the ground.

In the early 1980s Korczak planned the new wings of the museum but did not live to see his plans realized. Under supervision of his wife, Ruth, the new wing was built in the winter of 1983-84 by family members and a small permanent building staff. Funding for this expansion came, in large part, from a $60,000 check left in the Crazy Horse contribution box in late August, 1983. The check cleared the bank on what would have been Korczak’s 75th birthday. The Michigan contributor said he was moved by the purpose of Crazy Horse, Korczak and his family’s great progress, and by the sculptor’s reliance on free enterprise and refusal to take federal funds.

The Indian Museum of North America serves as an excellent resource for both Indian and non-Indian students. They have an opportunity to study and learn from the displays and the many other cultural and educational resources at Crazy Horse. It gave Korczak and Ruth and their family great satisfaction to see visitors in the museum appreciating and learning from the beautiful artifacts. We took quite a few pictures of these artifacts, and there are clickable thumbnails for some of these pictures below:

The gallery at the northeast end of the building had a very pretty set of windows that offered a great view of the memorial.

Outside on the Patio

Between the Museum and Gift Shop and the restaurant, and with the studios and craft centers to the southwest, there was a large wood-decked patio with a fountain. The patio was surrounded on three sides by buildings, but open to the northeast to provide good views of the memorial in progress.

The centerpiece of the patio area was the scale model of what the carving on the mountain will look like when it is done. You can see it with Guy and Prudence at left. Nearby there was a sign about the model and the actual memorial, giving all the relevant statistics of the size of the undertaking. You can read that sign here. Carved in plaster on the side of the scale model are the words written by the sculptor to describe the purpose and meaning of the monument. You can read these words in the scrollable window below:

It was hard not to take lots of pictures of the model itself; since the memorial has hardly been begun, it will be many, many years before the mountain begins to really take shape. You can see two closeup pictures of the model here and here. Fred did something a little more interesting with his photographs of the model. He positioned himself in such a way as to have both the model and the mountain in the picture, and by doing that, he shows how the mountain has begun to take the shape of the model. He took two very good pictures in this manner, and rather than try to decide which is best, I have included them both here and here.

Actually, over on the back wall of the patio there was a photograph of the mountain as it currently exists, and overlaid on that photo are sketch lines showing the major outlines of horse and rider. It is very interesting to look at, and you can see it here. I assume that it would be helpful if these same lines were first painted onto the stone of the actual mountain, but I assume there are reasons why that was not done. There are some thinner lines drawn on the rock itself, though, to guide the blasting and carving process at this early stage.

The back of the patio was under roof, and here we found other exhibits and artwork, including a beautiful eagle sculpture. There was also a model of what the entire campus will look like when the memorial is completed. The sculptor and his family envision a large complex devoted to the American Indian, and you can see that model here.

Of course, the main reason for having the patio in the first place was to provide a good viewing platform for visitors to see the memorial itself. Only on two days of the year, during an event called "the Volksmarch," are visitors allowed to get onto the memorial itself; you can't even walk closer from here. So views from the patio are the most common, and I have put clickable thumbnails below for four of the best of the views that Fred captured:

Korczak Museum and Craft Center

Our last stop here at the Crazy Horse complex was the museum devoted to the sculptor Korczak himself, containing sculptures, of course, but also memorabilia related to him and his family.

In the building devoted to Korczak, there were numerous sculpture pieces, including some large studies such as the one at left. There was also a family area, where items used by the family early in their careers creating the memorial were displayed.

There was also an Indian cultural/craft center, where artisans were actually at work creating their craft items, and where these items were available for sale. Fred took a couple of pictures of some of the more interesting pieces.

There are clickable thumbnails below for some of the pictures that Fred took in this area of the complex:

When we were all done looking around, we met up with everyone in the gift shop, and soon after that headed on down the road to visit the town of Custer.

In the Town of Custer, SD

We got back on Highway 385 and continued south. This brought us into downtown Custer from the north on 5th Street. When we came to the main road through town, Rushmore Road, we turned left (east) to find a place to park downtown so we could walk around.

On the map, the area we walked in downtown is outlined, and we'll zero in on that area in a minute. When we were done in Custer, though, we continued east on Rushmore Road; this took us again past Ken's Minerals, where Guy, Fred and I stopped yesterday. Then there is the road that leads into the State Park to the Sylvan Lake Campground where we camped in 2006. We continued on east through the park, eventually coming out the same way we entered earlier today.

On the closer view of the center of Custer, shown at left, you can see the area that we walked. I have marked the locations where some of our pictures were taken. We actually parked about a block east of N 5th Street on the south side of Rushmore Road. We first crossed the street to the north and walked westward back across 5th to the Courthouse Museum. I actually took that picture after we crossed Rushmore Road there, looking at some of the Custer buffalo sculptures that are scattered through town.

After we crossed the street, I stopped to take a picture of one of these buffalo sculptures and the museum behind it across the street. There are about thirty of these buffalo throughout town, each done by a different artist. Some are permanently installed; others are changed out periodically (much like Baskin Robbins ice cream flavors). You will see a few more of them today, but if you really want to survey a lot of them, go look at the album page for our visit to Custer in July, 2006. There, you will find pictures of most of them, and information about the artist and his inspiration.

When I took that last picture, I was standing at the corner of Mt. Rushmore Road and 4th Street, in front of the new Custer County Courthouse and across the street from the 1880 Courthouse Museum; on this corner is Way Park. In the center of the park is a memorial dedicated to the memory of Horace N. Ross, discover of gold in the Black Hills at Custer, South Dakota on July 27, 1874. Also in Way Park is Dr. Flick Cabin, which was donated to the City of Custer in 1875 along with the land for Way Park. The Dr. Flick cabin was the first building erected in the Black Hills. Dr. D.W. Flick built it of substantial hund-hewn logs and designed it as a home for his family.

Just down the block from the Flick house we came across the Custer branch of the Naked Winery- the very same winery that had supplied Fred and Prudence their glasses of rhubarb wine at lunch (which both Prudence and Fred reported to the rest of us tasted like nothing so much as cranberry juice). So we couldn't resist stopping in. Fred got a shot of Prudence and Guy at the winery while I went inside to have a look around. I found a small tasting bar and a few tables and chairs and, of course, lots of Naked Winery product around.

We walked a few more blocks east on the south side of Rushmore Street, passing some interesting shops and stores and three or four of the thirty-odd buffalo that are scattered about downtown. Below are clickable thumbnails for some of the pictures Fred took along the way:

Eventually, we crossed the street so Ron and Prudence and Guy could go into one of the stores and look around; Fred and I sat on a bench outside to wait for them. Just in front of me was another of the painted buffalo for which Custer is famous- "Riders on the Storm" by Colorado artist Ross Lampshire. Each buffalo has beside it a sign descriptive of the artist and their work, and you can read the sign about this particular buffalo and its artist here.

We returned to the car and in the light sprinkle headed on east through the park and back to Rapid City for dinner. Guy had to be back in Chamberlain late this evening, and we didn't want him to be on the road too late at night, so that's why we had a fairly early supper and a nice steakhouse recommended by one of the desk clerks at the MicroTel. It was a nice place with a good, though somewhat upscale, menu. We all enjoyed it.

Back at the hotel, we sent Guy off on his way. We will stay one more night and travel back to Chamberlain tomorrow, stopping at the Badlands National Park on the way.

	May 30, 2013: The Badlands of South Dakota
	May 28, 2013: Rapid City and Mt. Rushmore
	Return to the Ruckman Haus Photo Gallery Page