South Dakota

Location: Rapid City & Mitchell

When: End of October

Miles traveled: 849

Price of gas: $3.19 to 3.59

Interest: Staying warm

High point: Full moon= easy to see at night

Low point: Ice bumper cars only on weekends

One thing learned: I'm ready to be home for Thanksgiving.

    After Wyoming I visited Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Corn Palace in South Dakota.  I was thinking of also driving the Needles highway in Black Hills National Forest, but it closes after the first snowfall and the snow had already arrived.  There are many other caves, grasslands, state, and national parks near Rapid City, but at this point in my adventures, I was looking forward to being home for Thanksgiving, and was OK with only visiting Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

    My first visit to Mt. Rushmore was foggy, and the mountain was hidden from view.  The trails to the base of the monument and the Sculptor's Studio were closed for the season.  So I explored the visitor's center (which is located below the Grand View Terrace).  Mt. Rushmore was carved in six years, but due to low funding multiple years, it took 14 years total from start to finish.  The Hall of Records was also planned and started in the mountain behind the heads, but the onset of WWII prevented the room from being completed.  90% of the mt. was carved with dynamite and workers had to climb 700 steps everyday to reach the worksite.  A lift was eventually built for them to use, but most of the workers did not trust it's rigging and continued to use the steps.  In the Sculptor's Studio, a 1/12th scale model of the monument was constantly adjusted to fit reality of the mt.  When rock was blasted away in order to find suitable granite for carving, or when cracks threatened the integrity of a section, the scale model would be adjusted.  This was important because carving dimensions came from the model.  Later in the week, I returned to the mt. and was able to see the monument on a clear day!

    On the same day I saw Mt. Rushmore, I also visited Crazy Horse Memorial.  Crazy Horse is very different from Mt. Rushmore.  Depicting the Native American Lakota leader, Crazy Horse, the carving has been in progress for 75 years.  10 people work on carving the memorial year round and their tools of choice are diamond rock saws, drills, and a high temperature torch.  From a video that shows the carving process, I had the impression theirs is a very, very slow carving process with a lot of attention given to a perfectly smooth finished surface.  While another display pointed out the length of time required to build other magnificent structures (only churches were listed: St Peter's Basilica 120 years, Westminster Abbey 150 years, & Cologne Cathedral 632 years), I find it challenging to appreciate Crazy Horse's progress when Mt. Rushmore was carved in six years.  However, by my rough calculations, the labor that has gone into Crazy Horse is currently only 4.1% of the labor that went into Mt. Rushmore.  4% of Mt. Rushmore would not look like much either.  My family visited Crazy Horse in 1996, and since then, switchbacks have been carved out of the side of the mountain and half of the hand was carved. Two photos below are from Crazy Horse Memorial's collection of yearly progress shots.  I hope one day Crazy Horse is fully carved from the mountain, but I don't think I will still be alive when that happens.

View from parking lot

    A few days later after rotating tires, washing laundry, and trip planning, I drove across the state to Mitchell, home of the World's Only Corn Palace.  Easily visited in an hour or two, the Corn Palace is redecorated each year using 12 different shades/colors of corn.  Ears of corn are cut in half lengthwise and a nail gun is used to keep them in place.  Inside the building is a sports stadium with more corn designs on the walls.  A photographic history of the building is displayed along the hallways, and an upstairs area is dedicated to the art of the corn designs.  I enjoyed seeing those draft designs and final grid layouts.  A gift store of all things corn was across the street in another building. 

    Mitchell also has an ice skating rink with ice bumper cars!  They looked fun, but are only available on the weekends and I was there during the week.  Pheasant hunting is also popular at the end of October.  I did not go hunting, but talked with one hunter at the campground.  He does not like the taste of pheasant, but comes once a year because his dog enjoys the hunt.  

    South Dakota is full of farm and cattle land, red dirt, mountains on the west side and rolling hills everywhere else.  When traveling from west to east, the temperature also became warmer.  Not warm, but no longer cold enough to snow.  Now I am on to Iowa, windmills, and being one state closer to home for Thanksgiving.

    P.S. Merry Christmas!

Sweet potato burrito from Harriet & Oak