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.
