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4 days ago, we left Montana, crossed into Wyoming and then into South Dakota, the Black Hills region, so named because of the dark forests that cover the landscape. We're staying in an old (for America's standards) hotel, that is supposedly haunted, in Rapid City. The hotel claims to be the "Residence of Presidents", but it could be referring to the dozens of bronze life-size statues of past presidents adorning the streets outside; a theme that seems recurrent in this state. Take Mt. Rushmore for example: an avenue lined by all the state flags leading to the Grand Terrace, from where you can see the tribute paid to America's 'founding fathers'. We walked the "strenuous 40 minute" Presidential Trail (it took us 10 minutes) across in front of Mt. Rushmore, to get views from various angles, and as Mark so eloquently put it - They're cool if you like giant heads sticking out of a cliff face. Everyone else there seemed to take the homage quite seriously, probably out of patriotism, but I just can't quite imagine the British wanting to carve Gordon Brown's face into the white cliffs of Dover!
A couple of miles from Mt. Rushmore is another
over-sized carved-into-the-mountain tribute, and this one is to the Sioux leader, Crazy Horse. When the huge monument is complete, it will show the Native American leader on horseback, pointing out into distance, saying "My lands are where my dead lie buried", but for now he remains just a face in the mountainside.
South Dakota offers more than just glaring examples of American patriotism and their mantra of "bigger is better"; it also offers some stunning scenery. It's part of the Great Plains, and there's just something very romantic about the prairie grasslands: tall, silver-tinted grass waving in the wind, wildflowers and a landscape that stretches on for miles beneath the vast, blue sky. Or you can take Mark's viewpoint: "But they're just fields".
At the edge of the prairie is the Badlands National Park, originally dubbed the "bad lands" - mako sica - by the Lakota Native Americans, years ago. It is where the prairie gives way to a desert like landscape, and where the herds of bison and the prairie dogs (more like chubby ferrets than actual canines) give way to vultures and rattlesnakes. Rainbw coloured rock formations and canyons house hundreds of dinosaur fossils, and when
you're exploring the stark landscape, it does feel like the fossils are all the life that's left there. But then a bird of prey flies overhead or a butterfly lands on the dry cracked mud floor, and the place doesn't seem quite so dead.
Today we drove out to the genuine cowboy town of Deadwood, where Wild Bill Hickock was shot, in 1876. The old gold-rush town has been turned into a miniature Las Vegas, with casinos lining the main street, but it has been made a National Historic Landmark, and so they old buildings are preserved and there is definitely a very wild western feel to it. And just a little out of town is Mount Moriah Cemetery, where Wild Bill Hicock (James Butler Hicock) and Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) are buried, their headstones side by side. A tourist trap? Definitely. But still pretty cool.
Tomorrow, we leave the Great Plains behind and head over to the Rocky Mountains, for the final stage of our American roadtrip.
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Deborah
non-member comment
COOL!!!
Well, except for the statue of George Bush! Am loving Mark's comment re. fields :-) Great pics as always :-) The butterfly one is genius.