South Dakota - The Land of Mammoths, Monuments, and Nice People
Getting to South Dakota, specifically Mount Rushmore, is not as complicated as it used to be for Southern travelers. Delta now flies direct flights to Rapid City, but only a couple of times a week. If you need to come on one of the other days you're most likely going to connect through Minneapolis. From there the flight is less than an hour. Once we got to Rapid City we rented a car at the airport, and set out for our western adventure. When you get there you will need to find somewhere to stay. Rapid City is a good sized town with all of the mid-tier chains you can expect as a traveler. What I'm going to recommend is to skip staying in the city, and drive about 20 miles outside of town and stay at Custer State Park. I'll tell you more about the park later, but there are several accommodation types at the park including the very modern State Game Lodge. They also have private cabins and camp sites for rent all over the park, and several restaurants for people staying at the park to eat at should cooking in the wild not be your thing. If you do choose to stay in the downtown Rapid City area, which is completely awesome, and full of restaurants and an unusual number of microbrew pubs, then stay at the Hotel Alex Johnson. We spent our final night of our trip there, and getting around downtown was easy and convenient.
The first place for anyone to stop in western South Dakota is Mount Rushmore National Monument. The world famous sculpture features the faces of four of America's most famous presidents with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln looking down on you from hundreds of feet above you. The concept of this tribute to some of our most influential leaders was announced in 1927. President Calvin Coolidge himself came to the site to announce the construction of the monument, but like all things in this nation, priorities changed after October 29th, 1929. With the nation in the depths of a depression, funding and work on the project came to a standstill. Eventually, through many of the Alphabet Agencies of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, work began again on the site. Work began progressing in 1936, when Washington's face was completed, and a new president was added each year after that. Carved by Gutzon Borglum, the man who carved the famous relief into Stone Mountain in Georgia, he would live in the area for more than a decade working personally on the carving until his death in 1941. The monument would be completed several weeks after his death. The park itself is not very large, and is almost all in a straight line. When you enter the park you will walk through a row of columns displaying a flag from each state in the union. When you get to the end of the walk, you will come to a massive amphitheater that looks directly on the monument. Take the trail that walks you to the base of the monument. Less than a mile long, the trail will walk you to a cave that gives you an amazing view of the mountain through a crack in the granite. From there walk to the base and you can see the amazing detail each face contains. They went so far to carve lapels on Washington's coat, put waves in Lincoln's hair, and put glasses on Roosevelt's face. If you can, and if they are offering it when you visit, come back at night and watch the ceremony they conduct to honor those that served in our nation's military. The 40 minute presentation concludes with all veterans in the crowd coming on stage, lowering the flag at the monument, and spotlights being cast on the monument. I can't explain how exhilarating this experience was as an American. To walk around the park and see Americans from all across the country coming to celebrate the greatness of this nation is awe inspiring, but it is also equally impressive to see the number of foreigners who have come to see this tribute unlike any other in the world.
After you leave Mount Rushmore, and that should take you about 1-2 hours, drive about 10 miles down the road to a monument to a different type of American legend. The Crazy Horse Monument, located towards the town of Custer, South Dakota, will one day be the largest carving in the world, but I will warn you now, you may not be around to see it. Work started on the monument to the famous Oglala Lakota Sioux warrior in 1948, and has been going on continuously since then. Designed by Korczak Ziolkowski, one of the carvers on Mount Rushmore, Ziolkowski was asked by the Oglala nation to crate a monument to one of their most famous members. The park is completely privately owned, meaning it does not receive any federal or state funding, and therefore work progresses based off of ticket sales and fundraising done by the park. The first thing you will notice is how little appears to have been done in the last 70 years. At this point, the only visible evidence is the face of Crazy Horse at the peak of the mountain. You can also see the outline of the horse's head that will some day be carved out of the mountain. What is unexpected, and a very pleasant surprise, is the museum that sits at the base of the monument. Known as the Indian Museum of North America, the building contains thousands of artifacts from dozens of tribes across the plains region of the West. They have a Bible printed in the Dakota language, actual bows and arrows used by Sioux warriors in the 19th Century, and countless portraits of chiefs from around the nation that look down on you like wise sages hoping to share some wisdom. After you leave the museum, walk to the next building and explore the exhibits on the history of the American buffalo, and the Ziolkowski home that Korczak built himself to house his family. There you will see how he took care of his family over the next forty years while he worked for free on this monument. A famed sculptor, they have carvings on display all throughout the museum that he carved throughout his life including famous Sioux chief Henry Standing Bear and McDonald's owner Ray Kroc. Outside they have daily events like Native American dances. This was entertaining to see young children embrace their tribal history. While the monument itself is what you're paying to see, you may be disappointed in how little you actually see, but spend a few hours in the museum and you will enjoy your time there and have a better understanding of the people who settled this land thousands of years before the United States was founded.
When you are done, spend the next day or three at Custer State Park. The largest state park in the nation, this park rivals any national park I've ever seen in size, beauty, and wildlife. Stay at the State Park Lodge and you will wake up to herds of bison roaming in the fields in front of your room. Drive the Wildlife Loop and you will get to see hundreds of bison roaming across thousands of acres of fields. You will also see herds of deer, elk, prairie dogs, wild turkeys, and dozens of other animals that are like walking through a living nature show. Some of the highlights are Sylvan Lake, a picturesque small lake on the western end of the park near Mount Rushmore that sits between granite peaks. The man-made lake has several wonderful hiking trails that surround it. One of the trails did something I've never seen on any trail, it had you hike down a waterfall, in the waterfall. Take the hike and you will be rewarded with a view of a waterfall running into a valley that looks like a scene from the Land of the Lost. You can imagine mammoths wandering the valley as if nothing had changed in the last ten thousand years, and to be honest, it doesn't look like much has changed. When you're done at the lake, head over to the Prairie Trail on the southern end of the Wildlife Loop. This three mile trail will carry you over mountain streams, across prairies, and through forests that I assume look identical to how they looked when settlers marched west 150 years ago. The trail is challenging, there are steep hills and slick rocks to contend with on portions of the trail, but the views are worth it. Along the way we found the remains of some unknown animal that had left this Earth a long time ago. While probably just a deer, just seeing the bones of this animal washed white with time tells you how much this land goes undisturbed over the years. After our hike we were driving back to our hotel when we saw a herd of bison on the march. Turning down a gravel road to get a closer look, we found ourselves settling in for nearly as hour as these massive beasts encircled our rental car (thank God for rental insurance from my credit card), but this once in a lifetime experience helps you to understand why they were so prized by Native Americans and early settlers. They are mighty beyond words, if they had wanted to I would assume could have flipped our vehicle over with one swift charge. Buffalo are actually called the American bison, or to be more specific their name is the bison bison (yes, the same name twice), and can run up to 35 miles an hour despite weighing between 1500-2000 pounds. If you do find yourself around bison when you are in the open, move very slowly away from them, and if you're in your car, drive very slowly (literally like 2-3mph), and they will usually let you pass.
When you are done with all of this, you still have the wonderful towns of Hill City, Custer, and Hot Springs to visit. Wendy would never forgive me if I didn't mention how fun the Mammoth Site was in Hot Springs. The active archeological dig site is home to the remains of over 60 mammoth skeletons, and is well-worth the trip. The ticket price includes a guided tour and a chance to watch the archeologists clean the remains in their specialized lab. In Hill City, visit the Black Hills Institute, one of the leading dinosaur museums in the country. This museum was made famous by the documentary Dinosaur 13, and the remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex named Sue that was sold against their will after spending years excavating it on tribal lands. Every square inch of the museum is packed with skeletons of the mighty creatures that once wandered these grounds millions of years ago, including some of the biggest tyrannosauruses ever found in the world. Walk down the streets in Hill City and Custer and you will find shops filled with local artisans selling everything from Native American art, antique guns, fossils, geodes, and just about any western art you can imagine. I can't tell you how much we enjoyed our three days in western South Dakota, but I can tell you it blew our expectations out of the water. There was so much to see, and I feel like we barely scratched the surface. What was once going to be a single trip to South Dakota has turned into what we hope is the first of many to get to experience this wild land, and the kind people who call it home.
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