South Dakota

4/21/23:  I write from a Super 8, where we'll be for two nights, after staying in a hotel last night, too.  This is luxury at its height!  Hot showers that require neither inserting quarters every 3 minutes nor walking 100 yards from the camper to the campground bathroom...Life is good.

Today was a travel day, but tomorrow we'll see Wind Caves National Park, the Crazy Horse Memorial, and Mount Rushmore.

5/10/23: Looks like I neither finished nor published that post.  I can tell you now that all three South Dakota stops were cool.  The Black Hills are sacred lands to a number of Native tribes.  In fact, Wind Caves are believed to be where humans were created.  The Crazy Horse Memorial, conceived of by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear, is very cool.  In addition to a monstrous blasting project that will eventually create the sculpture below coming out of a mountain 6500+ ft above sea level.

Here's the progress thus far as seen through some light falling snow from the Visitors Center.  

There is also a Native American Museum and a College.  It feels worth cutting and pasting a bit from one part of the website here.

Crazy Horse Memorial® is located in the heart of the beautiful Black Hills. The elevation on the Mountain is 6,532 feet above sea level and ranks 27th highest mountain in South Dakota. It is made of pegmatite granite and was chosen by Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski & Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear for the Crazy Horse Memorial®.

The Mission of Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation is to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians. The Foundation demonstrates its commitment to this endeavor by following these objectives:

• Continuing the progress on the world’s largest sculptural undertaking by carving a Memorial of Lakota leader Crazy Horse;
• Providing educational and cultural programming to encourage harmony and reconciliation among all people and nations;
• Acting as a repository for Native American artifacts, arts and crafts through THE INDIAN MUSEUM OF NORTH AMERICA® and THE NATIVE AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL CENTER®;
• Establishing and operating THE INDIAN UNIVERSITY OF NORTH AMERICA®, and when practical, a medical training center for American Indians.

We were not only impressed with the scope, vision, and inclusivity of all that is going on at Crazy Horse but also love and respect the fact that the Native people have insisted on maintaining full control of all aspects and dedicated themselves to writing their own history, presenting their own narrative.  What has been created - and all that is still becoming - represent an invaluable gift to all peoples.

Mount Rushmore, located only 20 minutes from Crazy Horse, is pretty cool, too.