On Saturday, April 29, we left Medora ND and headed south.
First stop was Belle Fourche SD which has the privilege of being recognized as the Geographic Center of the US. After the addition of Hawaii as the 50th state, the geographic center of the country was recalculated and found to be about 17 miles outside of Belle Fourche in a rancher's pasture (farmer's field?). There is apparently an official stake there to mark the spot. But that wasn't good enough for Belle Fourche so they had a monument built and located at their visitor center on the way into town. It's patterned after the Four Corners monument where AZ, NM, CO and UT meet. Of course we had to stop and get our pictures there (I'll add a few of them later).
After that stop, we continued south on our way to Custer SD.
On the way in we stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial which is just a few miles outside the town of Custer. If you're not familiar with it, it was started in 1948 but is far from completion. When (if?) finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture. Much bigger than Mt Rushmore.You really have to see it to appreciate it. The scale is enormous! This endeavor is wholly dependent on contributions and ticket/souvenir sales. No state or federal money is or ever was used.
Custer SD is another neat little western kind of town which caters to the tourist trade. But being off-season, most of the restaurants (and many of the other businesses) aren't yet open for the season.
On Sunday, Apr 30 we went to see the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Impressive to say the least. We've all seen the pictures but seeing it in person is totally different. And the museum and exhibits give a lot of information, details, and insights that you probably won't get elsewhere.
Factoid: While Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, had initially stated that he didn't want to use explosives in carving the mountain, he quickly changed his mind and in the end about 90% of the carving was done using explosives!
Factoid: Before he became involved in the project at Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, was involved in another mammoth carving - Stone Mountain GA! Borglum actually started the first efforts at Stone Mountain but left the project after he had a falling out with the organization funding the work. His initial efforts there were blasted off the mountain when work was restarted by his successor.
After spending a few hours at Mount Rushmore, we drove down to Custer State Park - a 71,000 acre park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It has it's own herd of about 1300-1500 bison, along with elk, deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and prairie dogs. It's a really impressive state park, almost on the order of the Theodore Roosevelt NP. As far as I know, Pennsylvania has nothing to compare.
[More info and pictures later as I continue to try to get caught up.]
That's all for now ..... Dan
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