Crazy Horse and Caves

We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial today.  The Crazy Horse Memorial has been under construction since 1948 and there is no end in sight.  The sculpture will depict Crazy Horse, an Ogala Lakota warrier, who was an Indian hero at Little Bighorn.  It is said that he rode his horse back and forth in front of the cavalry with hundreds of bullets being aimed at him, but he was not harmed.

After the dedication of Mt. Rushmore, Chief Standing Bear wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, a Polish sculptor, who had just won a prize at the New York World's Fair asking him to do a sculpture honoring American Indians.  The story of how Korczak got this project started was fascinating.  His family has continued since his death in 1982 without any funding from the government.  They rely mostly on tourist dollars.

At first it seemed that very little progress has been made since only the head is done, but then you see the scale of this project and realize how much rock has been removed.  The head is 87 ft tall, about 27 ft taller than those on Mt. Rushmore.

Current Focus of Work

 

We had a chance to ride a bus to the base of the mountain and there was a nice Visitor Center there with a museum of Indian culture.

We had lunch in Custer, SD and drove to Jewel Cave National Monument.  The monument was created in 1908 by Teddy Roosevelt and was the first cave to be designated a National Monument.  At present, 151 miles of the cave have been mapped out making it the second largest cave in the world.  However, only a fraction of the cave has been explored, so it could be much larger. 

This area apparently has a lot of caves.  Wind Cave National Park is also located in the Black Hills.

Likes sea level

We descended 250 ft. in an elevator to get a 20 minute look at a large cavern.  The cave stays at 49 degrees all year round.  Interestingly, the cave reacts to changes in air pressure outside by taking in or letting out air.



We had dinner at Mt. Rushmore and stayed to watch the Lighting Ceremony.  The ceremony begins with a movie about America and the ideals of the presidents represented on the mountain.  America the Beautiful comes on and the mountain slowly begins to light up.  Its very moving.  Then, they play the National Anthem and all the veterans in the audience get to come onto stage to take down the flag.  This is one of those events that you have to experience in person to get a true feeling of what it is like.

Unfortunately not many of our pictures came out, but here are some pictures.

Ave of the States

Mt. Rushmore at Night

 Veterans Retire the Colors