Close encounter

   We started our day in southwest South Dakota, in the area around the Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monuments. There were good sized crowds and of course a lot of other man made attractons have sprung up nearby as tourist traps. But the general feel for the place was still good, not nearly as tacky as most tourist places around home in the east.

    It was foggy when we left the hotel but the sun came out just in time for our arrival at Mt Rushmore. It was a very good looking place to visit, well taken care of by the National Park Service. Our next stop was the Crazy Horse Monument about 20 miles away. It's still in the early stages of construction, and after looking at the model at the visitor's center, we could tell it won't be finished any time soon. The local indian folks seem to be proud of how the place is taking shape, a number of local indian artists had shops on the grounds.

   The chief sculptor is an interesting story in himself, from a Polish immigrant family living in Boston. He decided he wanted to be a sculptor at age 16 and worked his way up to assistant at Mt Rushmore.  He was asked by local indian chiefs to do another to honor indian leaders. For years he worked alone and this monument is much more ambitious than Rushmore both in size and detail. All four of the presidents on Rushmore could fit in the space behind Crazy Horse's head. Shaping is done by drilling and blasting the mountain with the finishing work by hand. After the original sculptor died, the project was taken over by his family of 10 kids. All the work is financed by private donation.

   We drove north to pick up Interstate 90 again and passed through the infamous towns of Deadwood from the wild west days and Sturgis, famous for it's biker conventions.  In the first week of August every year, Sturgis turns into the Mecca for motor cyclists and over a half million bikers decend on the town. The big difference would be the beer I guess; I wonder how much beer a half million motor cyclists could consume in a week. Next July I might check out Budweiser stock for a short term buy.

   We crossed into Wyoming as it started to rain and we made our way over to a close encounter with the Devil's Tower Monument. It was almost spooky the way it protrudes up through the ground, and it can be seen for miles as we got approached. It's volcanic in origin, millions of years ago magma seeped up from under the earth's crust and hardened in place. There were signs asking people not to feed the prairie dogs .....

   As the park closed we continued west into central Wyoming. There wasn't much to see other than hilly grasslands; cattle have to feel good about living there, the food supply is endless. After sunset we couldn't help but notice how dark it was off the highway, not a light to be seen sometimes for miles. It seems a little too quiet for a place to live.

   We stopped for the night in the town of Buffalo, about one third of the way across Wyoming. We are beginning to see the mountains ahead of us, tomorrow we should in the Rockies for real as we head for Jackson's Hole and the national parks.