A Night in the Black Hills

I have a list of states that I’ve visited (“Drive Through” and “Destination” states). That list has grown by five states in less than a month. My latest addition on my “weekend” off of work was South Dakota. Seeing Mount Rushmore is just one of those American things I felt I had to do in my lifetime, and since I now have a season parking pass, I will only get more American as the summer goes on (I plan to reuse the parking pass as many times as they'll let me). I stopped at a rest area that had this sign in the bathroom stall. Don't kid yourself, Wyoming. It's an indoor outhouse...

 

 

The first stop on my agenda was Crazy Horse in the Black Hills, which was about 3 to 3.5 hours driving time from Torrington, WY. Crazy Horse is ran by a private foundation including the family of the original sculpture Ziolkowski. Check it out online for the full history. Basically, it was commissioned by the Native Americans of the Black Hills because the Americans had Mount Rushmore, so they wanted a monument to one of their great chiefs: Crazy Horse. The monument started with one man, a generator, and some tools. It is still a work in progress and is already much bigger than Mount Rushmore. It was started in 1940, and there is still a lot of work to be done on it. It will be awesome to revisit it in the future, take pictures, and compare the progress they've made. But Crazy Horse. Though a little expensive, it was a great trip and I recommend it. I would definitely suggest setting aside a large portion of your day to see everything. That was my mistake. This was my first encounter with horsehair pottery, which I’ve fallen in love with and will buy at some point during my adventures (I didn't budget for it).

I’m here to tell you about how awesome it was. If I go back, I plan on taking a trip up to stand face to face with Crazy Horse. This time, I just hadn’t budgeted the time or money for it. They have an extensive museum with various collections of Native American artifacts, a 30 minute-ish film on the history, food, gift shop, and a viewing platform with a scaled model of the finished Crazy Horse monument. It was $11 to get in, which I thought was kind of expensive and does not include the trip up to see

Hill City, SD

ext stop was Hill City, SD, which is a cute little touristy town near Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. A family friend told me I had to stop and eat at the Alpine Inn, a German restaurant that advertised “fine European dining” on the door. Had I known this, I would have opted for a slightly less sweaty t-shirt (I don’t dress up for anything except job interviews, weddings, and funerals; fine European dining does not qualify for “dressy”). Turns out, the food was very affordable. I got the Cattleman special: beef tips, grilled onions, and cheese in the form of a sandwich with a French dip to go with it and a side of German potato salad. I don’t even like potato salad, but theirs was delicious. While I was eating, every customer I heard talking was going on about how their bread pudding was the best they’d ever had. One bragged that he’d had bread pudding in New York City, and this was much better. Another asked if they could ship it to North Dakota. I was trying to eat on a budget, but I had to try this bread pudding. I was not disappointed. I can’t say I’m a bread pudding expert, but this was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. For the whole meal and tip, I paid $22, the most I spent on food the entire trip.

I spotted a rock shop across the road, so of course I had to go in there. I wondered into a few shops and learned that there is going to be a bike rally near there. One million bikers are expected to attend. I think I’ll avoid the area around that time.

Next was Mount Rushmore. This may sound unpatriotic of me, but I was actually kind of disappointed after seeing Crazy Horse. Maybe it was because Mount Rushmore is one of the most famous national landmarks and has been in so many movies. I had this image in my head of a gigantic thing where each face was the height of a mountain, kind of like Crazy Horse. So when I drove up and caught a glimpse of these four small (compared to my imagination) faces carved into a mountain, I was kind of let down, to be honest. I was further discouraged when I had to pay $11 for a season parking pass when I was only going to be there for the afternoon. I debated about not paying it, but was ultimately glad that I did. It was much more impressive up close, and I was able to hike halfway up the mountain and stand right underneath it. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln are absolutely huge. I don’t want to take away from how awesome of an accomplishment and what an amazing engineering feat it is. The only way I can justify or explain my feelings is like this: imagine you are a HUGE Kim Kardashian fan (I’m not, but I need an example).

So you’re the biggest Kim Kardashian fan alive. You think she’s beautiful and smart and sexy and super tan and in shape. Larger than life. And then you see her in person. And she’s a jerk. She’s kind of pale, and doesn’t look at all like her Photoshopped pictures. I’ve never had that happen, but that’s how imagine it would feel. I had this image in my head of this gigantic structure that fills your whole frame of view, and I show up only to find that everyone Photoshopped out the bottom half of the mountain and made them look a lot bigger. But, like I said, I was more impressed the longer I stood admiring it. And I only had to yell at one little brat of a child. There is a viewing platform that hangs over an amphitheater. I’m not good at judging distances, but I would say it’s a 40 or 50 foot drop. When I walked up there was a kid that had climbed up onto the concrete portion and had one leg over the metal railing, but he stopped when I walked up. But he came back, and this time he managed to get both legs over the railing and was shouting, “I’m not gonna die! Na-na-na-na!” I realized that his parent(s) was nowhere to be found, so I yelled, “Get your ass down from there!” He rolled his eyes at me but muttered, “Fine.” My work done, I headed off to the path up the mountain. I’m glad I took the time to hike up the mountain and relax for a bit underneath the giant faces. It really helped me appreciate just how huge they are. And huge or not, they are American, and I felt a little more patriotic after being there. Now that I have a season parking pass (there was no day pass, weird), I’ll probably try to catch an event there or something. I would like to see the fireworks there around the Fourth of July. Because there’s only one thing more American than Mount Rushmore, and that’s Mount Rushmore with colorful explosives going off in the background.

My next dilemma was finding somewhere to stay for the night. Since I plan on travelling quite a bit, I won’t be expecting to stay in hotels every time I go on an adventure, so I had to find a campground. I wanted cheap, but there’s a problem with that: cheaper = more remote. Paranoid, overly cautious person that I am, I wanted somewhere popular with lots of families and civilization near me. I know I could have found a campground for $10-15, maybe even cheaper, but I opted for Horsethief Lake Campground a couple of miles from Mount Rushmore for $24. I got there just before it started filling up for the night. It is definitely popular, and the view couldn’t be beat. My tent-building skills, however, leave a lot to be desired. I definitely need some practice. I camped next to a friendly German family and an outhouse so I didn't have to stumble too far to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Couldn’t be better. I’d rather pay a little more and get a better night’s rest than go cheap and not be able to sleep because I’m creeped out. I also discovered that my tent set-up skills need some work. For the life of me, I could not make the center stay flat. It kept drooping. Oh well, it kept the rain off me, and I'll get plenty of practice since I can't spend money on hotels. My conscience won't allow it.

 

After I set up camp, I left my tent and went on a scenic drive through Black Hills National Forest and possibly Custer State Park (I’m still not clear on if I ever went into the state park; I kept passing signs for it). It was absolutely beautiful. The road goes up in corkscrews and through one-way tunnels at points, so while the mileage isn’t anything crazy, it still takes a while. The views were awesome, and there was plenty of wildlife. I got some great pictures of some deer I walked up to. I got about 40 feet away when they got nervous and left. I saw a bison and stopped the car, but I left it in drive and didn’t get out because they aren’t quite as cute and cuddly as deer. And this was a bull: even more dangerous.

I went back and stayed at the camp for the rest of the night. I’ve found that overnight trips are where I really get some of my best pictures. I don’t feel pressured to rush through, and I can catch the sun going down and coming up. I was also away from any serious light pollution, and I had the whole night to play with my camera. I’m on a mission to get great pictures of the moon. As I get more familiar with the proper settings and spend more time trying, I improve. And, for the first time ever, I managed to get some pictures that showed the stars. I’ve been trying to figure that one out for a while. My camera tripod and the darkness that can only be found in the middle of nowhere made it all possible. I also took a few long-exposure shots of cars crossing the bridge across the water. For those of you who don’t know, long exposure shots mean that your camera lens stays open longer. This means that it lets in more light and captures a greater time period than a quick snapshot. You use a longer exposure when you are either shooting in a low-light setting or want to show movement (or both in the case of the cars on the bridge). I’m not a camera expert by any means. Everything I know is self-taught from playing around with the settings and reading the occasional manual or photography article. If I ever get spare money and time, I’ll take a photography class. I should have long before now, but I haven’t. So it’s on my to do list.

The bad news it, my tent has a condensation problem, and it rained overnight. Combine that with my poor tent set-up skills, and I woke up slightly wet. It could have been much worse, though. I’ll set up better and remember my pillow next time. That will fix most of it. What I can’t fix, is the chipmunk overpopulation that is going on around Horsethief Lake. I was kept up a lot that night by chipmunk territory dispute. I know that’s what they were because I would wake up to two distinct chipmunk’s chattering at each other, then scuffling, then one making a pitiful, wounded noise.

Well, this concludes part one of my South Dakota adventure. I feel like this is enough reading material for one blog, so I’ll continue my next entry with my adventure out from the Black Hills into the plains, including Rapid City and Badlands National Park.