July 4, 2009 Day Five

Happy 4th of July! Happy Birthday USA and Happy Birthday Sister Shari!!
Today we went for a ride thru’ the Black Hills up and around Rapid City. We found a new campground in the Sheridan Lake Recreation Area (run by the U.S. Forest Dept.) Tomorrow we will move over there. It’s more woodsy, the lots are MUCH larger, and it’s on a lake. There’s no wifi or electric hook-up, but, we can run off from our batteries for a couple of days (and we have two generators, too, in case we need them-doesn’t solve the wifi situation, however. Will just have to find a restaurant somewhere w/ wifi). It’s more our style of camping, rather than being ‘tinned’ in like sardines in those RV campgrounds.
We went to Crazy Horse Memorial today. Amazing! It’s similar to Mt. Rushmore in that it is a sculpture out of a mountain, but different in that rather than being a national monument, it is a non-profit project, funded primarily thru’ admission fees and private donations. The Indians commissioned this self-taught sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, to carve a memorial out of a mountain in the Black Hills for ‘their people’ back in the late ‘40’s. It has taken 60 yrs for it to come this far. Korczak died in 1982, but, his wife (who is 18 yrs younger than he was) and 7 of their 10 children continue on with his project. It took 50 yrs just to finish the face of Crazy Horse. It is HUGE! All 4 of the Mt. Rushmore presidents’ heads can fit into the face of Crazy Horse. If you ever get out to South Dakota, this is a MUST SEE! http://www.crazyhorsememorial.org/ is the website if you want more info. They even have 2 live webcams on top of the mountain so you can watch the progress online.
On our way to Crazy Horse, we thought we saw a rock landslide on the road up ahead, but, it turned out to be big horn sheep tumbling down off from the rocks alongside the road. (see attached pic)
In the evening, we drove downtown Rapid City and did the Presidential Walking Tour. They have a life-sized bronzed statue of every US president, thru’ Bush the first, on every street corner in downtown RC. Very realistic and detailed statues!
Then we went to the grocery store, did laundry at the laundromat in the campground, watched an episode of Northern Exposure, and called it a day. Another LONG day!