My brother, clever man that he is, decided to meet up with me in the Black Hills as part of his own road trip. The Black Hills and surrounding area are famous for a number of reasons:
- The Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and All Around Shit Show
- Mt Rushmore
- The town of Deadwood
- Wind Cave National Park
- Devil’s Tower National Monument
- Badlands National Park
- Minuteman Nuclear Missile Silos
- Ellsworth Air Force Base
Given all the attractions around us, we naturally started our four day excursion with a trip to the local pool for some lap swimming.
Ashu after ~20 hrs of driving and a swim workout.
After getting a quick swim in and a much needed shower, we headed to Mt Rushmore to check out some dead presidents. Mt Rushmore is more of a large hill, but the sculpture is nonetheless impressive. We had some really good ice cream while there (what could be more American?) and found out that Thomas Jefferson wrote down the first ice cream recipe in history.
The evening lighting ceremony at Mt Rushmore was done with a lot of pomp and fanfare. After a ranger read from a set of cards, a very patriotic film was played. All the vets in the audience were called down to the stage for several rounds of applause, and the national anthem was played. The night concluded with a flag ceremony.
Mt. Rushmore once again.
We did a quick detour in the middle of the day to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is a similar style sculpture but on a larger scale. It depicts Native American icon Crazy Horse, and seems to be intended as a counterpoint to Mt Rushmore, which doesn't really address the impact America's founding and expansion had on the Native American population and way of life. The memorial is still under construction, which progresses slowly due to being funded entirely by private donations. When complete, the complex will house a Native American university in addition to the existing Lakota Museum. They’ve been at it for close to 70 years - hopefully it’ll be done in less than 70 more!