Big Rock Sculptures

South Dakota has exceeded my expectations. The area south of Rapid City is filled with things to see and do. This has caused it to become a bit cheesy in places but it's not hard to sift through to get to the good stuff.

The major attraction is of course the 4 fellows on the hill. They being 60 foot faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. So now I can tick the Mt Rushmore box of places been, things seen. One funny story, the sculpture's secretary was fired for writing a memo where she misspelled the word winch with an 'e'. She wrote One wench is to be available for use by the sculpture at any time he may choose to use it.

Just down the road from Rushmore, is a half finished mountain sculpture called Crazy Horse. It is a depiction of an Indian warrior atop his horse pointing to the distance as he says My lands are where my dead lie buried. It is not yet finished and to give some perspective, the 4 president's heads will fit into the size of Crazy Horse's face and hair. So you could say it will be fairly big!

From above ground to underground, my next stop was Windy Cave which is, as caves go, not super exciting. The interesting thing about the caves is that 135miles of tunnels have been mapped and it is believed this is only about 5% of the total length but it is all within 1 square mile. For all this only one natural entrance has been found and it is about 1 foot in diameter.

Also underground, I visited a mammoth archaeological dig which was pretty cool. There have been several specimens found and they are still digging. It is thought that the area was once a hot spring and the mammoths liked to bathe in it but it had steep sides and they couldn't climb out so died of exhaustion and sank.

Back up on the surface, I enjoyed hiking through the grasslands in Custer Park and while the scenery is not spectacular like the Rockies, it is very pretty and somehow soothing on the soul. I came face to face with a bison bull and after flaring our nostrils at each other, watched a pronghorn antelope prance off into the sunset as the prairie dogs cheered him on with their barking. For the first time in a very long time I felt content and in tune with the universe.