Trains, Crazy Horse, and the Black Hills

We arrived in Rapid City in the early afternoon, on the heels of our encounter with turkeys, bison, prairie dogs, and the dinosaur. We then spent the afternoon huddled in a Borders book store while multiple inches of rain accompanied by small hail pelted the roof. The next day we learned that at least one tornado had touched down in the general area of our travels.

After the rain settled, we made our way to the cabin where we slept the next few days -- a delightful little cabin rented by Hillside Country Cabins. However, Carolyn had no intention of giving us time to rest, relax, or grow bored. She mapped out the next day for a train excursion offered by the Black Hills Central Railroad followed by a drive past the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore, and a drive over the scenic Iron Mountain Road and the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway. The train excusion was nice -- every bit as scenic as promised. Crazy Horse is most excessive in intention, as the plans are for much of a mountain to be shaped as the mounted warrior. After these many years, his head appears, large enough to dwarf the heads on Mount Rushmore. In another two to five hundred years, provided works continues apace, he may actually have a horse beneath him.

After viewing Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore seems almost reasonable. As for the scenic highways, they reflect another kind of excess, as their winding nature was created, not by necessity, but by design. The project was intended to offer maximum scenic opportunity, including the opportunity to see the Mount Rushmore faces framed by at least two of the tunnels for persons driving in the proper direction. The one-lane tunnels and safety pin turns (yes, safety pin -- full loop -- rather than hairpin) turn the Iron Mountain road into a drive-it-yourself rollercoaster ride. The designer must have worked for a carnival or two.

The scenery was great, both on the scenic highways and elsewhere as we made our way about the Black Hills (an old mountain chain that boasts peaks a bit taller than any in the Appalachians). The lakes provided our eyes a moment's rest after gazing at the protruding mountain peaks. Frantic tourists that we were, we managed a satisfying, if exhausting, day.

Now, on to too many pictures, for a single large one might be more impressive, but that's just not the way I build web pages:



A beautiful statue in , and a rabbit outside a rock shop.

The profile of George Washington's head was much easier to zoom in on than anything on the Crazy Horse mountain as well as the four heads on the highway. I find myself reflecting on the irony of those four faces being carved into a mountain on blatantly stolen land, the Black Hills generally being one of those promised last homes for a variety of Indian tribes. Well, the history of the human nation-state is a history of 'who stole it last'; I've become reconciled to the behavior of the species. Now, on to a sampling of the good stuff:

From there, it's on to Devil's Tower, Wyoming -- a long drive to see one of the strangest looking big rocks found on the American landscape.