Road Trip, Part V

Wednesday, May 25: This was when my trip started in earnest. In the morning I drove north to Mount Rushmore, with a plan to return to the motel in a couple of hours to watch the Liverpool-AC Milan UEFA Champions League final on TV.

Mount Rushmore by day was impressive but not spectacular. I suppose it falls in the category of things one has to do, like going to see the Taj Mahal or the Mona Lisa, because to not do it would be even more ridiculous. But the real highlights of the day were watching Liverpool recover from 0-3 after half-time to win the Champions League on penalties (go Reds!) followed by drives to Crazy Horse Mountain and through Custer State Park.

South Dakota in general and the Black Hills (Paha Sapa in Lakota Sioux) in particular are steeped in Native American history, as the last bastion of several Sioux tribes in their fight to protect their lands from US possession. The Battle of Little Big Horn involving Sioux Chief Crazy Horse and Lt. Colonel George Custer took place here in 1876. So did the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 in which several hundred Sioux, including Chiefs Big Foot and Sitting Bull, were killed in what was virtually the Sioux’s final stand against US troops.

To commemorate Crazy Horse’s contributions in the Sioux fight for independence, a memorial on the lines of Mount Rushmore is under construction at Thunderhead Mountain a few miles south. When finished it will be much larger than the more famous presidential heads, but funding has continually been a problem. Begun in 1948, it is still far from being finished, depending solely on voluntary donations to keep the project alive.

The memorial housed a museum that was a solemn reminder that while history is inevitably written by the victors, there are always two sides to the story. There is something mystic about the Native American peoples that resonates with anyone who loves nature. I spent quite a while in the museum trying to get a sense for the history of the region and its proud people and regretted not having done any background reading before the trip.

Leaving Thunderhead Mountain, I headed into Custer State Park along the incredibly scenic Needles Highway, named for strange slender rock formations that occurred intermittently along the road. In a couple of places, the road tunnelled through a hillside and the tunnels were so narrow that there were barely a few inches of room on either side of the car as I passed through. I drove by picturesque Sylvan Lake (left) and Legion Lake, spending a large part of the time bird-watching – a pair of mallard ducks, several finches and other species that I, regrettably, was unable to identify.

In the southern parts of the park, I encountered mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, burro (a species of wild donkey), prairie dogs and the inevitable bison, stopping to take pictures as often as the road would allow. For the first time during the trip I realised that while driving alone is enjoyable, it makes nature-watching that much harder. This problem would become even more acute in Yellowstone, where the abundant wildlife constantly battled with the road for my attention.

I had planned on checking out of the Best Western and moving to a campground that night, but another spell of heavy rain changed my mind fairly quickly. While at Mount Rushmore earlier in the day, I had noticed a sign advertising a night-time ceremony followed by the illumination of the monument. I was intrigued, as I had never heard this mentioned in any account of Rushmore. So, since the visitor fee is valid for the entire day, after another satisfying dinner at Captain’s Table, I returned to the memorial. While I (intentionally) missed most of the half-hour ceremony, I was just in time for the US national anthem and the lighting of the memorial. I must admit the illuminated view of Mount Rushmore in the dark, cool surroundings was far more memorable than my morning visit.