Day three of our adventure began with the misty drive I told you of in part 1. Considering how often we stopped to take pictures and look around, it was a rather short trip to the exit. Our next destination was Black Hills, which include Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial and Custer State Park. But first we stopped at Wall Drug in the town of Wall, SD. It is a tourist destination with cute gift shops. We bought a freshly made doughnut and their famous 5 cent coffee, which I paid 21 cents for because they have a "to go" surcharge. The coffee tasted like dirty feet- but, what did I expect?
Mount Rushmore is beautiful. People kept telling me that it would be smaller than expected. I was actually most surprised by how close we could get to it. The carving was amazing- smooth as marble and beautifully done. Also, tickets are only $10 for a year pass! That was surprising, too. We didn't spend a lot of time at the monument because there wasn't a great deal to see other than the sculpture. There was a little museum, but we wanted to do a few other things that day, so we took some pretty pictures and headed out. My favorite picture is of the monument reflected in the windows of the museum.
This is the back side. You can drive along a road right behind the sculpture!
The Crazy Horse Memorial was the next stop on our journey. It is unfinished but a marvel. All four heads of Mount Rushmore can fit inside Crazy Horse's head! The Memorial was begun in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski who was one of the sculptors on Mount Rushmore. He worked alone for many years, built his home, married and had ten children, seven of whom still work on the memorial today and two of whom became master sculptors like himself. He died in 1982.
The memorial has a large museum that was his house and workshop. There are many scale sculptures of his vision for the finished product. Eventually, the monument will be three dimensional with a plaque carved into one side. It is an incredible undertaking but truly amazing that one many did so much by himself. With only a sledge hammer, a single-jack drill bit and a box of dynamite, he moved 7.4 million tons of granite! I highly recommend seeing the museum and watching the video. You can also watch at: http://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/home/thingstodo/parksmonuments/crazyhorse
The sculptor and his wife.
One of my favorite of his other works.
I had to get a picture of this cowboy family! I am from the Midwest and you just don't see a lot of cowboys in Michigan or Chicago.
One of the fun things about the memorial is that they have a pile of the blasted rocks that you can choose from. We use ours as a doorstop!
There are also several vendors from the Lakota tribe who sell their handmade jewelry inside the museum. I bought a necklace and it has become one of my favorites. You have probably seen me wear it.
Next we went on to Sylvan Lake to hike! My husband does not do well in cars for long periods of time, so when planning our trip I made sure to put a hike in the middle. We picnicked on the lawn of the lake before out hike. It was a beautiful day, not too warm; clear and sunny.
After lunch we found another bug friend! He was enjoying the warmth of the sun on our car. We let him enjoy in and headed for the trail head to Harney Peak!
This was taken about fifteen minutes into our hike. In the far distance, you can see the point to which we are heading. In the far, far, far distance! Harney Peak is the highest point East of the Rocky Mountains and West of the Pyrenees in Europe! And we were trying to hike it!
Below are a series of photos of our hike, including a zoomed in view of the summit from this point.
Proof that we made it! The hardest part of the hike was the last 100 yards. I told Edward to go on ahead of me, so he was enjoying the view long before I reached him. The last bit was all stairs! Everyone whom I passed during my climb gave words of encouragement like "It is worth it!" They were all sweaty and panting but looked exhilarated, as well. I knew I was going to the top no matter how tired I was. It would be worthless to have hiked so far and quit before the summit! I told someone as much on my way back down.
Yes, that is the side of Mount Rushmore! You can see the parking ramp to the right. This is a slightly zoomed picture.
After enjoying our success and resting for a while, we headed back down. There are several paths going in and out, so we decided to take trail 4 out as we had taken trail 9 in. We got to see some really cool rock formations and also met a nice family who were lost. We had a trail map with us but no water- so they shared their water and we shared directions. Behind Edward in the picture below is one of the people we met. She had grown up in South Dakota but now lived somewhere else and was visiting her family. She was hiking with her step father, niece and grand niece. She and I chatted quite a bit. In this photo, you can see her niece in the yellow shirt.
The views were amazing and we thought we knew where we were going. We followed the path down a steep incline and came across a trail marker. We hadn't seen one for quite a while and were getting nervous. Well, the marker told us that we were no longer on trail 4! The inline had not been part of the trail at all. It was left over from a mudslide.
The new trail let out on a main road and not Sylvan Lake. The family we had been walking with decided to go to the road and call for a ride back to their car. They offered us a ride, but Edward was determined to hike out. I didn't want us to get separated, mostly because we have only one cell phone. But I was tired and dehydrated and according to the map had a couple more miles to hike- not to mention getting back up the mudslide! But my husband encouraged me and we kept going.
A couple of hours later we finally made it to the trail head! Edward ran ahead to get me some water from the convenience store at the lake while I plodded on slowly toward civilization. Lesson learned: always take water with you while hiking! Before Edward returned with the bottle, I ran into the niece we had been hiking with. She offered me some of her water again and we both expressed happiness at knowing the other found their way out of the wilderness.
After a long drink, we headed toward out campsite. I had booked it from Michigan and the internet said that there were showers at the site. Not only were there no showers, there were only pit toilets. This is not really a problem except that I was tired and sweaty and we had stayed someplace with no showers the night before. Also, it wasn't what we had expected and that made it harder. Still, we set up our tent and then decided that camp food was not going to cut it after such a hard hike. We needed protein! We were nearly half an hour from the nearest lodge, but we called to see if they were still open. It was 8:34 and they closed at 9. The woman on the phone said to hurry on over and she would make sure we could eat. We arrived just before 9 and felt bad because they were already mopping and beginning to close up. They were kind, however, and made Edward a pizza and me fish and chips. It was wonderful just to have a hot meal!
Afterward, we went back to our campsite and to sleep. Our site was on a slight incline, so I had to keep scooting up. We were plenty tired, though, so we dropped off quickly. We woke early the next day and headed toward the Blue Bell Lodge for their buffalo tips and egg breakfast which had been hailed by Food Network magazine as the best breakfast in South Dakota. On the way we saw this guy.
I'm pretty sure he knew I was going to eat his brother for breakfast! He didn't seem to care very much, though, and let us be on our way. It seemed like a big deal at the time, seeing a buffalo in the wild. That was because we hadn't gotten to Wyoming yet and Yellowstone National Park. But that will be in part three. For now, enjoy a few more looks at South Dakota.
