Leaving Pierre we stayed on US 14 to the town of Philip, where we turned south on State Road 73 to I-90 then east to Wall, where we exited and followed the signs to Badlands National Park. I'd been through the park last year, and everyone else was content to skirt around the southern edge on State Road 44, which is interesting enough and has no traffic. Near Rapid City, SD we followed the signs to US 16 and Mt. Rushmore. We all walked from the large parking garage through the crowds to the viewing area, took a few pictures, and headed back to our vehicles.
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| Still there |
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| Five great Americans |
We left Mr. Rushmore and went south on US 385 to the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial. Andrew and stopped there in 2002 and I was somewhat taken aback by the large and new visitor's center and the seeming lack of progress on the actual sculpture. Now the building is actually larger and the sculpture looks about the same, although we were told that they work on it continually. It turns out that when complete it will be the largest sculpture in the world - three times the size of Rushmore, larger than the pyramids. Meanwhile, the visitors' center is actually an Indian History museum as well, and we spent some time wandering through and examining the art and artifacts, including a letter from a woman who wrote to her sister about the murder of Crazy Horse while he was in custody.
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| Crazy Horse sculpture |
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| Crazy Horse and Crazy Geo |
We followed US 385 north through beautiful mountain country into Deadwood where we decided to skip a visit to the cemetery and the graves of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. US 385 is under construction through town, so it was a bit of a mess, but outside town it becomes a very good road all the way to I-90. We went on I-90 for a couple of exits to US 85 north to Belle Fourche, where we are spending the night at a particularly shabby Super 8. We had dinner downtown at a bar/restaurant which I thought was OK, but Spitz had hoped for better beef in cattle country.
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