We were on the go from six in the morning until ten or so at night, hiking and doing the tourist thing. The day started off with a visit to the Devils Tower Visitor Center, where we learned the formation was a monolithic igneous intrusion, sacred to many local people, and the first United States National Monument, so named by Theodore Roosevelt. It rises 1,267 feet above the surrounding terrain. Afterwards, we took an hour-long hike around the base, and then went to visit a prairie dog town. That's our P.T. Cruiser parked alongside the road; there was a narrow trail through the prairie dog town that we walked.
I was on the trail, about six feet away from one of the critters, when I took this picture:
Not as dramatic as the Dramatic Prairie Dog, but still fun.Most of the day was spent at Crazy Horse Monument, a work-in-progress begun in 1948.
One day, the entire mountain will look like the model done by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski . It is the largest mountain carving in the world. Just how big is big? Well, the entire Mount Rushmore carving can fit where Crazy Horse's head is. That's big.
I thought this was sweet, a 23-year-old cat that hangs out at the Crazy Horse Museum gift shop. The caution sign is placed wherever the cat flops down, so nobody steps on it.
A visit to the Black Hills is not complete without a trip to Mt. Rushmore. We took a hike to the base here, and were appalled at the conversations of those around us who admitted out loud that they didn't know who the people carved in the mountain were! These were not foreign tourists; these were Americans. Sad.
3 comments:
Many can't tell you who the current Vice President is, no matter who happens to be President at the time. I'm a product of public schools as is my daughter, and she can tell you, so what's the excuse for being so ignorant?
As an aside, I went to the grocery store deli one time and a woman wanted 1/4 pound of lunchmeat. She asked how many ounces that would be and the deli counter employee didn't even know, then the customer asked: well, how many ounces in a pound? neither of them knew.
I thought I was on "Candid Camera"
Sweet kitty...the oldest any of mine have gotten is 18.
Anonymous--That's crazy! Reminds me of my mom's story of how, when she was a manager at Target, the registers had some kind of issue so she gave the checkout clerks paper and pens to figure out totals with tax. They were horrified, and many didn't know what to do. (Of course, if I just got the details of this story wrong, Mom will correct me here I'm sure.)
Karen Anne--The oldest any of our cats have been was 18, too. Not bad for a cat, and yet it still seems too short.
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