Vacation Day Four - Monuments, History and Smelly Animals in the Black Hills

We took off out of Deadwood to see the national monuments and Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. It's not a very long drive to Mount Rushmore from Deadwood; the Crazy Horse Memorial is less than 20 miles away, and Hot Springs is just 40 minutes south of that.

Mount Rushmore is surreal, I think, because I've seen it so many times. It's not as tall as it appears in pictures, probably because of an optical illusion created from shooting at an angle.

It's majestic, though.

I thought about how an artist's vision was on such a grand scale that he decided to make a sculpture on the side of a mountain.

I thought about George Washington leading a bunch of farmers and merchants against the greatest army in the world and laying the groundwork for Presidents to come.

I thought about Thomas Jefferson and how he took this idea of democracy, something the world had never known, and created the blueprint. ("We hold these truths to be self-evident.")

I thought about Abraham Lincoln and the thankless and tireless job he did, trying to hold the country together, and giving his life for his country as much as any of the hundreds of thousands who went to war and didn't come back.

I thought about Teddy Roosevelt. Why is he there?

It started to rain, so we went on to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which I think is the definition of an obsession. It is another mountain carving started in 1948. His face is done. It's been 62 years.

The artist died in 1982 and his family has carried on with the carving. They will not accept government money or assistance, only personal donations. Until I saw the video outlining the challenges, I did not appreciate the tremendous amount of work that has gone into creating this memorial.

I hope it is finished in my lifetime. I will definitely return to see it completed.

We moved on to the Mammoth Site near Hot Springs. Of all the places we visited, it was the most expensive, by far, almost $50 for us to see. It's a guided tour. As an archaeology buff, I was looking forwardto seeing it.

Because the remains are not fossilized, they can't really take them out of the ground without doing them irrepairable damage. This is both a blessing and a curse. Scientists from all over the world can come to see the site and conduct research. It also means, for the general public, you can't get close enough to really see the remains.

We took the scenic route back to Deadwood, but compared to Kansas City, the ugliest part of the Black Hills is scenic. As we drove through Custer National Forest, we saw buffalo, elk, deer, antelope and prairie dogs. It reminded me a lot of our family vacations when I was a kid, driving through the Rockies on our way to visit my Dad's family in Oregon.

I think Aidan got tired of stopping all the time and wanted to get back to Deadwood. We saw thousands of buffalo like the big boy pictured above. Shortly after I took the picture, Aidan said, "Less stopping. More driving!"

I'm not sure why he wanted to get back to Deadwood so fast. He can't gamble. But it was funny.