September 26

Morning dawned bright at the Windmill. 

Our first mission of the day was to find a spot for Shirley that evening. We wanted to take a day exploring the area. We stopped at a Camping World store (likely a fate worse than death for many of you) to pick up a new power cord for Shirley-Mr Preparation had managed to fry our other one. Oops... Lo and behold, we discover that we can actually bunk at the store, they have a couple spots with hookups. 30 minutes and we were set up and outta there, headed to the Black Hills.

On the advice of a friend we were using an app called gypsy. It was a narrated driving tour that was gps enabled so it made navigation easy along with the info it provided. It kind of felt old personish, kind of akin to a guided bus tour in Europe. But driving was one of our few options with Kari's foot so it was perfect. Our first stop was the Crazy Horse Memorial https://crazyhorsememorial.org of which we had no clue before today. It turned out to be absolutely fascinating. They're in the process of creating the largest sculpture in the world, having begun in 1948. The head is the only part complete so far. The head is 87 feet tall, the entire sculpture will be 563 feet and will comprise the entire rock face below and to the right of the head as depicted in the second photo.

The most interesting part of the memorial is what it represents. I had an image beforehand of kind of a rinky dink carving in the country. Rather, it's an incredibly important institution to the Native American community. Their mission is "to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians". It's a large, sophisticated and impressive operation. While there we listened to a young Native American lady talk about her heritage, then watched her hoop dance. She was mesmerizing and used over 30 hoops at a time.

Next we were off to Custer State Park and the Black Hills. I've never been to this area, Kari was as a kid but had no real recollection. We were blown away with the beauty. A former governor marked the route of the main road on foot and horseback in the early 20th century. It's narrow and windy, with several tunnels and these cool "pigtail" bridges whose shape are kind of like a roller coaster corkscrew. There is also a "needles" section known for it's rock formations. No way Shirley would fit through these tunnels!

Our next stop was lunch at Blue Bell Lodge.

The park is known for it's bison herds and other critters, including wild burrows, who knew?

On the east side of the park, 3 tunnels frame Mt Rushmore as you drive towards it. Apparently this is how it was designed, with this route being the preferred entrance into the monument. It was an interesting engineering feat. 

I have to admit I still don't get the point of Mt Rushmore. Nonetheless it's kind of cool, a dose of patriotism is always a healthy thing. After a short talk by a park ranger they flip the light switch on and play patriotic music. It was a fun night.