Days 5 and 6- South Dakota Territory

See six things you didn’t know about South Dakota http://www.blacktable.com/schulte040331.htm

We left Sioux Falls early in search of some breakfast and ended up driving 60 miles to Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace. We had a greasy brunch at the Country Kitchen that made James a little crabby because he ordered a tasty-looking salad and they brought him iceberg lettuce with bacon on top and two tomatoes on the side- NOT what they had advertised. We stopped in at the Corn Palace, bought some post-cards across the street and got some snacks for the road at a nice natural food store. We ventured on to 1880 Town, about 100 miles away/half way across the plains.

We passed by De Smet where Little House of the Prairie’s Laura Ingall’s Wilder lived out her childhood in the house Pa built. It was too out of the way to go see and I’ve probably read the books at least 3 times and I like the house in my imagination. At 1880 Town we paid $18.90 to walk through this living museum to the homesteader world. James learned what a Livery was and I showed off my caboose, which attracted the attention of the "sheriff "of 1880 town who asked me if I was in the military because I had my green cargo pants on. He asked me if I had kids and offered advice on how to make one when I said “not yet.” James was in the bathroom- I told him not to leave me alone again.

We rolled back out and before we hit the Badlands we took another break to have a banana split at a teeny tiny town on the prairie at a nice little stand across from the local high school. The Badlands were definitely bad-ass. We can’t imagine crossing those crazy things in a Conestoga Wagon. We had a tough time getting back up to the top of the ridge (called “the Wall”) in the Camry! It was breathtaking! We didn’t hike too much there as it was getting towards the late afternoon. We pushed on towards the Crazy Horse/Mt. Rushmore area where I had made reservations to stay in a cabin at the Custer Crazy Horse Campground. It was a cute little cabin and we slept like logs after a long driving day!

We woke up around 7 and took showers and by 8 we were driving up to the Crazy Horse Memorial gate. By the Way- EVERYONE should go here. It is the coolest place we have seen yet. This Polish guy from Boston, Korzac, was asked by the Lakota chiefs to work on this monument back in 1948. It is a private, non-federally-funded project that will probably take 150 years to finish because only as they get more money, they keep blasting away at the rock. It is really amazing to see the progress made in the last 50-odd years. This sculptor, Korzac, had 10 kids and 7 of them have been working on the project since his death in 1982. It is something like 18 times bigger than Mt. Rushmore, and the 4 President’s heads, the pyramids at Giza, and the Washington monument could all fit inside just Crazy Horse’s head. It is quite the statement! We absolutely loved it. They just finished building this beautiful Museum of the North American Indian and it rivals the Smithsonian. We actually liked it better since instead of just putting stuff on display behind glass, there is a more hands-on feel, and there is an obvious sense of the reality of what happened and is happening to the Native peoples. It is a huge lodge made entirely of Ponderosa Pine from the trees that were cleared off of the mountain. There are workshop spaces for Native American Craftsmen and a huge bazaar where people from the local reservations and sometimes far away come to sell their wares.

We were really impressed. We can’t wait to come back in another 50 years! They have a plan for the area to be the site of the University of the North American Indian, the North American Indian Medical Center, and a cultural center for the Indian community. As they raise the money, they just start building- meanwhile the sculpture is being blasted at about a million tons of rock per 10 years (with current funding). It is just amazing. We donated $5 and got a piece of the mountain (a little rock). We left there and headed towards Mt. Rushmore and decided not to go in. We did a drive-by and saw a cool Mountain Goat instead. It reminded me of Hoodwinked (the movie). Mt. Rushmore is cool but it is definitely (and rightly) dwarfed by Crazy Horse. It seems like a just way for Native Americans to stick it to the white men.

We headed over to Deadwood for lunch and I have to say it is a pretty cool cultural center (most likely and rather unfortunately due to it being a big casino town) - we had great and HEALTHY food at the local bistro and I stopped by a cute children’s consignment store that had some cute stuff but nothing summer-y enough and the right size for Will. We mailed a bunch of postcards (to those we have addresses for) and then headed out of town towards Montana. We had a beautiful drive through a little corner of Wyoming and then through the Cheyenne and Crow Reservations. The reservations are sad- lots of mobile homes and "Tennessee hillside" issues and seemingly no business/entrepreneurship. It sent me into "saving" mode and I dreamed the rest of the way through them about productive cooperatives and commonwealth states. We saw lots of Pronghorn antelope, hawks and other birds, prairie dogs at the Little Big Horn monument and tons of horses and cows.

It is definitely big sky country here. We stopped at a little hole in the wall just outside the reservations for a grilled ham and cheese and some strawberry pie. YUM! We ended up in Billings- kind of a worn-down ugly town set against a backdrop of a huge ridge. It was a railroad town named after the owner of t he train line, and now it's just like any other typical town in the US, complete with the typical chain stores. We wholed up at a cheap motel and went to the local grocery store for microwave dinners that were actually pretty yummy. Tomorrow is YELLOWSTONE!