Custer, South Dakota..Rated "R"

Parking Lot at Crazy Horse Memorial

 

Crazy Horse Memorial Sculpture in progress

Likeness when sculpture is completed

Inscription that will be included in sculpture

Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore

Those "pesky happy campers" again

Side view of Washington when leaving Mt. Rushmore

Downtown Custer, South Dakota during Sturgis Rally

Downtown Deadwood, South Dakota during Sturgis Rally

Eye candy for Mike

Site of Wild Bill Hickocks demise

Diamond Lil's  Restaurant

More eye candy for Mike 

We arrived in Custer, South Dakota on August 8 and were thankful we made reservations.  This was smack in the middle of Sturgis Rally week.  We drove into Custer for dinner and there were Bike's everywhere!  The town accommodates by roping off the middle of the street for the bikers to park.  After having dinner at a pub, we stopped for ice cream.  They were advertising homemade pie and I got a piece of rubarb.  It was delicious.  Much better than Mike's plain ole Butter Pecan ice cream.  He even thought so (I shared).  The next day we traveled a few miles to the Crazy Horse Memorial. 

Crazy Horse Memorial was dedicated on June 3, 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear.  Ziolkowski started carving with a sledge hammer, single-jack drill bit and a box of dynamite.  He built a set of 700+ steps to the top of the mountain.  He spent the next 36 years of his life blasting away 7,400,000 tons of granite to rough out the entire figure.  He died in 1982, but his family continues the task.  He had 10 children and 7 continue to work at the site.  His wife, who is now 84, oversees everything.  They have refused any government funding.  It is being funded entirely by donations and monies made at the visitors complex.  People may think that $10 per person is a lot to enter the complex, especially when you can see the sculpture from the road, but the entrance fee is worth it for all the information and history that they provide with a video and museum.  It is the largest sculpture in the world.   We were sure impressed.  I would love to see it finished, but it won't happen in my lifetime. 

After visiting Crazy Horse, we drove over to Mount Rushmore.  They are about 20 minutes away from each other.  The drive up the mountain was beautiful.  The granite rocks were pillars and glistened in the sun.  Mount Rushmore had a lot of history too.  It was the idea of historian Doan Robinson, who wanted the carving of a likeness of 4 famous people in order to promote tourism.  He chose famous names from the west such as Buffalo Bill Cody and 3 others I can't remember.   The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum refused, stating it should be a memorial for the whole country.  He chose Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt.  Work began in 1927. After Borglum's death in 1941, his son completed the construction.  Mount Rushmore is still controversal among Native Americans because the US seized the area from the Lakota tribe after it was granted to the tribe in perpetuity. Although impressive, it is much smaller than the Crazy Horse memorial.  I think I would have been more impressed if we had seen it first!

The next day we decided to drive over to Deadwood.  There were literally 1000's of motorcycles on the road.  When we arrived in Deadwood, we found the town overtaken by bikers.  I expected a lot of rowdyness, but nothing!   Well, almost nothing.   As you can see by the pictures, we saw a couple of "sights".  I expect the night was much more lively!  We had lunch at Diamond Lil's.  It's a restaurant that was bought and renovated by Kevin Costner.  He has a lot of movie pictures and clothing on display.  Dances with Wolves was filmed in this area. The downtown is pretty much out of an old west setting.  After strolling into a few stores, we made it to the car and started back to the campground.  On the way we stopped at Red Ass Winery and sampled some of their wine.  It was better than the name suggests. 

This was the last stop on our list of must sees as we traveled across the USA. It has been a wonderful experience and we know there is alot more to see but for now we're done. We're making a beeline for the east where we will spend the next couple of months seeing doctors, dentists and optometrists. We will hang out mostly in Marietta, OH before heading back to Florida for the winter. This will probably be the last post you will see until we begin meandering again. Love to all who have been faithfully following our journey.   Mike and Charlotte (Those Pesky Happy Campers and Meandering Mountaineers)