Travels With Kindred
For a time-line account of my recent travels with my mother and daughter, see firehair28's recent entries, which are far better written than I can achieve. But (since she was writing under pressure) here are some highlights and thoughts about our five days adventuring together:
The first view of the four faces was amazing, seen through a cleft in the mountains through which we were driving. The night show was very moving, and as we left the faces were flood-lit under a crescent moon. But now that I have seen the Black Hills and learned just how sacred they are to the Lakota peoples, I have a better understanding of why the carving of Mt. Rushmore so outraged them. It's as though someone put giant, permanent graffiti on the walls of the Grand Canyon. Part of my mind is awed at the splendor of the carving and the immense effort put into it by a driven, patriotic artist; the other part is deeply saddened at what was done to a holy place by its intruding conquerers. I'm glad to have seen it, but I don't think I will ever go back there.
The Crazy Horse Monument is not just a whole mountain being carved, it's also an entire complex of workshops, displays and artifacts that we did not have time to see. The art collection in the Visitor's Center building alone is worth the price of admission, and I'll happily pay $25/car to see it because, unlike Rushmore, not one dime of Federal money has gone into any of it. The Lakota chiefs commissioned the work on their own land, and all of it is funded by donations, admission fees, and what the Lakota can raise to contribute. The original artist is dead now, but his children continue to work as funds allow. This place I do want to see again, and if I ever win the lottery I'll gladly donate $1M to help finish it.
The infamous gravel road wasn't really all that bad, and it did lead through some gorgeous country. The really interesting (or as firehair28 put it, "funny once") road was Iron Mountain Road from Custer National Park back to Mt. Rushmore. Not only did it have some really hair-raising U-turns, it actually corkscrewed around itself on wooden trestles so that we went under the part we were just on, over and over again. It's called a "pigtail road" for very good reason, and I never want to drive it again! It's very scenic, though...
Wall Drugs is every bit as amazing as firehair28 says, and they make the best doughnuts I have ever eaten in my life. Plain cake, still faintly warm, absolute ambrosia. I got my picture taken riding the Wild Jackalope, and we were roared at by a very convincing T.Rex head behind a security fence straight out of "Jurassic Park". Wall Drugs started its climb to fame by offering free ice water and nickel-a-cup coffee, and it still does. You pour your own coffee (admittedly a small cup, but still...) and drop your nickel in the tin can on the honor system. And free ice water in the Badlands is worth knowing about in any case. Go there and marvel at the art collection, if nothing else, while you drink your free ice water. The town is named Wall because it sits on a 'wall' around the Badlands; one wonders if anyone there has seen "Stardust".
We pulled into the first vista point, picked our jaws up off the ground and just stared for a while. There's no way to describe it -- you just have to go there. There are boardwalks, so the fragile fossil mud is not smunched by millions of tourist feet. Because we were there so early in the morning, the rabbits were out for morning silflay and were happily chasing each other less than a foot from the boardwalk we were on. We saw a magpie at the Visitor Center -- I had never seen one, but Fi knew what it was and pointed out that there were magpies in the beautiful Lakota artist print gracing our hotel room wall. We also saw the Prairie Homestead, a sod house carved into a hillside with a later wooden addition, looking like the owners had just stepped out for a minute. There was a separate storage cellar and a chicken house, likewise built into the hill and fronted with sod. All of this was built in 1907 and lived in until the 40's. There is also a prairie dog town populated with white prairie dogs, the only such population known, and you walk right through them to get to the house. They are fat little butterballs and were only vaguely interested in the "Prairie Dog Chow" (unshelled peanuts) we tried to feed them. But mostly we just stopped at turnouts and stared at the stupendous scenery -- it reminded me a bit of photos of an area in Turkey where people have carved homes into the soft rock, all sculpted into spires and tablelands. The fossil-digging was over for the season, so we did not get to the Big Pig Dig, but the Geology Museum at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology had lots of samples and some glorious skeletons including a plesiosaur over 50 feet long -- whee!
Our hotel room at the Alex Johnson had a window through which we could see a kindly brontosaurus on a hill, watching over us as we went to bed. My mother and my daughter actually got along fairly well, all things considered, for which I was thankful. And I offered a prayer at Wind Cave, the navel of the Lakota world, which felt comforting. Fi and I hope to go back and have more adventures in the Dakotas, even if they do make us late for dinner.
The first view of the four faces was amazing, seen through a cleft in the mountains through which we were driving. The night show was very moving, and as we left the faces were flood-lit under a crescent moon. But now that I have seen the Black Hills and learned just how sacred they are to the Lakota peoples, I have a better understanding of why the carving of Mt. Rushmore so outraged them. It's as though someone put giant, permanent graffiti on the walls of the Grand Canyon. Part of my mind is awed at the splendor of the carving and the immense effort put into it by a driven, patriotic artist; the other part is deeply saddened at what was done to a holy place by its intruding conquerers. I'm glad to have seen it, but I don't think I will ever go back there.
The Crazy Horse Monument is not just a whole mountain being carved, it's also an entire complex of workshops, displays and artifacts that we did not have time to see. The art collection in the Visitor's Center building alone is worth the price of admission, and I'll happily pay $25/car to see it because, unlike Rushmore, not one dime of Federal money has gone into any of it. The Lakota chiefs commissioned the work on their own land, and all of it is funded by donations, admission fees, and what the Lakota can raise to contribute. The original artist is dead now, but his children continue to work as funds allow. This place I do want to see again, and if I ever win the lottery I'll gladly donate $1M to help finish it.
The infamous gravel road wasn't really all that bad, and it did lead through some gorgeous country. The really interesting (or as firehair28 put it, "funny once") road was Iron Mountain Road from Custer National Park back to Mt. Rushmore. Not only did it have some really hair-raising U-turns, it actually corkscrewed around itself on wooden trestles so that we went under the part we were just on, over and over again. It's called a "pigtail road" for very good reason, and I never want to drive it again! It's very scenic, though...
Wall Drugs is every bit as amazing as firehair28 says, and they make the best doughnuts I have ever eaten in my life. Plain cake, still faintly warm, absolute ambrosia. I got my picture taken riding the Wild Jackalope, and we were roared at by a very convincing T.Rex head behind a security fence straight out of "Jurassic Park". Wall Drugs started its climb to fame by offering free ice water and nickel-a-cup coffee, and it still does. You pour your own coffee (admittedly a small cup, but still...) and drop your nickel in the tin can on the honor system. And free ice water in the Badlands is worth knowing about in any case. Go there and marvel at the art collection, if nothing else, while you drink your free ice water. The town is named Wall because it sits on a 'wall' around the Badlands; one wonders if anyone there has seen "Stardust".
We pulled into the first vista point, picked our jaws up off the ground and just stared for a while. There's no way to describe it -- you just have to go there. There are boardwalks, so the fragile fossil mud is not smunched by millions of tourist feet. Because we were there so early in the morning, the rabbits were out for morning silflay and were happily chasing each other less than a foot from the boardwalk we were on. We saw a magpie at the Visitor Center -- I had never seen one, but Fi knew what it was and pointed out that there were magpies in the beautiful Lakota artist print gracing our hotel room wall. We also saw the Prairie Homestead, a sod house carved into a hillside with a later wooden addition, looking like the owners had just stepped out for a minute. There was a separate storage cellar and a chicken house, likewise built into the hill and fronted with sod. All of this was built in 1907 and lived in until the 40's. There is also a prairie dog town populated with white prairie dogs, the only such population known, and you walk right through them to get to the house. They are fat little butterballs and were only vaguely interested in the "Prairie Dog Chow" (unshelled peanuts) we tried to feed them. But mostly we just stopped at turnouts and stared at the stupendous scenery -- it reminded me a bit of photos of an area in Turkey where people have carved homes into the soft rock, all sculpted into spires and tablelands. The fossil-digging was over for the season, so we did not get to the Big Pig Dig, but the Geology Museum at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology had lots of samples and some glorious skeletons including a plesiosaur over 50 feet long -- whee!
Our hotel room at the Alex Johnson had a window through which we could see a kindly brontosaurus on a hill, watching over us as we went to bed. My mother and my daughter actually got along fairly well, all things considered, for which I was thankful. And I offered a prayer at Wind Cave, the navel of the Lakota world, which felt comforting. Fi and I hope to go back and have more adventures in the Dakotas, even if they do make us late for dinner.