The BlackHills: Extraordinary Sites

In January this year I went to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a very interesting trip. Randy was doing ice sculptures for "meals on wheels". Derek did a lot of the live sculpting demonstrations and Randy got to be a judge for the Chili Contest. I rented a car and drove to Wyoming to see the famous Devil's Tower. There were so many things to see in Rapid City, South Dakota and it was impossible for us to see it all. We saw Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, and  statues of all the Presidents of the United States. Most of the real tourist areas were closed for the winter, which was kind of a bummer.  I only had three days to stay here, so I tried to see as much as possible. 

Mount Rushmore was much larger than I expected. I wasn't really sure what to expect. It was extremely cold, but I loved the view of it. How extraordinary is it that humans carve these things out of the side of a mountain? The talent of a person/people to sculpt such a thing in a matter of years is really amazing.

 This is Derek hard at work. He is a master with a chainsaw. He carved while Randy taught others about ice and had them learning how to make ice sculptures.

 This is Devil's Tower, Wyoming. It was an hour and a half drive from Rapid City. This was the most pleasant drive I have ever had. The scenery was amazing. Wyoming was beautiful upon entry, the snow was glazed over and it looked like glass. There were hills and plateaus. While coming across Devil's Tower it can be seen about 10-15 miles out because it is so large. I stopped to marvel at it and it seemed a little eerie. I kept expecting a dinosaur, or some large prehistoric creature to pop out behind it. This natural structure seems almost unnatural, intentional, as it were a pillar for something larger...

 I loved Crazy Horse Memorial. Mostly because of what it stands for and because the family that continues to build it does so without the help of any government. Crazy Horse represents a lot, to me it represents the true American way, work hard, work long, expect results, and don't quit until it's finished. The man who designed Crazy Horse had ten children and seven of them still work on this project. When done it will be larger than an Egyptian Pyramid. More information can be found at:
http://crazyhorsememorial.org/

The Badlands were other worldly, being there was as being on another planet. I had no idea it would have such extreme landscape. After reading about it more and more I discovered it wasn't really "bad" the land it actually very lush and good for growing.