Sunday, July 24, 2005

Black Hills & Badlands Part 6 - Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and Custer State Park


The original plan for 7/22, our second day in the Badlands, was to do a bit of roaming around the park and just take a long siesta. Well, because of Dotty's exhortations, we took a day-long side trip. The first leg was the forementioned Wall Drug and then we were back into the car headed for Mt. Rushmore.

The commercialization from Rapid City all the 40 mile way into Rushmore was revolting -- think the worst aspects of Maggie Valley, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg and you're almost there. Once we got into the slim perimeter of protected lands, it got better...and then the familiar scene came into view. Rather than spending the 8 bucks to park and to go the museum, Genna navigated to the employee parking lot immediately behind the musuem where I snagged this shotRight around a bend in the road, there was a pull-off where you could view the profile of George...

And so we continued on to the Crazy Horse monument which poses as a sort of politically correct counter to Rushmore. You can read all about it here -- the story of the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski who essentially gave over half his life to the project is quite moving as is the fact that his widow and seven of his ten children continue on with the mammoth project 47 years after the first blast. The ultimate plan is to have a medical university and several other facilties at the monument.

Here's the view of what's been completed

The finished piece is to look like this

The finished monument will have this "poem" sculpted into the side of the mountain - the last line is attributed to Crazy Horse himself and dovetails with the scupture's detail as he points:

"When the course of history has been told Let these truths here carved be known:
Conscience dictates civilizations live And duty ours to place before the world. A chronicle which will long endure For like all things under us and beyond. Inevitably we must pass into oblivion. This land of refuge to the stranger Was ours for countless eons before: Civilizations majestic and mighty. Our gifts were many which we shared And gratitude for them was known. But later given my oppressed ones Weremurder, rape and sanguine war. Looking from whence invaders came, Greedy usurpers of our heritage. For us the past is in our hearts. The future never to be fulfilled. To you I give this granite epic. For your descendants to always know- My lands are where my dead lie buried. "


There was an awesome museum. One woman had a fantastic t-shirt and I offered her my opinion. I then asked if I could photograph it. Instead of doing that I purchased this poster with the same content...speaks for itself.

For the moment, because of time constraints, you'll have to enjoy Genna's photographs of the buffalo at Custer State Park without commentary.






We're headed to Teton/Yellowstone today --could be dark here at the blog for a week given the absence of technology but we'll post as soon as we're able.

Cheers,

John & Genna

Black Hills & Badlands Part 5 - The World's Biggest Ball of Yarn a.k.a. Wall Drug

Genna tells me, with a wink, that every pharmacist is required to make a pilgrimage to Wall Drug in Wall, SD. And since it was just a few miles down I-90 West from the Badlands, the pilgrimage we did make.

The legend of Wall Drug is rather simple. A struggling family pharmacy was trying to figure out show to increase business out on the South Dakota prairie. They had the brainstorm that travelers coming across the prairie would want some ice water, so they started putting up signs along the highway advertising chilled H2O for free. It has since expanded into its own mega tourist trap - the town of Wall and Wall Drug have essentially become synonymous.
I started to twitch the instant I got out of the car. Then we went inside to mill with the throngs and view the t-shirts, the shit, the t-shirts, the sugary food, the shit, the t-shirts, the caps, the souvenir spoons, the mugs, and the t-shirts.

Then the T-Rex who arises, spews smoke, and screams a la' Jurassic Park every 12 minutes did his thing
We went into the "museum"...
Genna spotted and photographed this homely Indian with his papoose
It was all pretty awful -- Genna said that the cappucino was the worst she ever had - I tossed my expresso as well.

Genna, BEFORE the cappucino arrived

We moved on to the Main St. of Wall where it got worse. Given the fact that the Sioux from the Black Hills were largely displaced because white greed for gold, this setup was disturbing:
Genna once pointed out some souvenir cats that were repulsively constructed, in a very non-PETA protocol fashion, from rabbit fur. Here's such a critter that has the added bonus of appearing dead:
And we have very safe, "good" Indians to take back home
On to Mt. Rushmore.....

Black Hills & Badlands Part 4 - Making some new friends

As previously mentioned, when we first checked in we encountered a guy kind like a cross between these two characters:













When we came back for the siesta and the actual check-in, I was greeted by a very different person. This older lady told me to come back to the office at my leisure and that she would draw me a map of the best way to get to Mt. Rushmore and where to see some local wildlife. When Genna was crashed out, I went to take her up on it. Well, I got the info, and a lot more.

Dotty Lebel and her husband Frenchy are "workampers" (read about it here and here). Essentially, they live out of an RV and work when they want to -- in this case, they help manage the Badlands Inn. When the season is over, they'll pull the connections and head to Arizona for the winter. Next, year, who knows where they'll be. Their one restriction is that they only want to work in states with no income tax, because apparently if you work in one state with it, that state's Dept of Revenue will attempt to reach deep into your wallet and get income tax from EVERY state you've worked that year. So they like Tennessee, South Dakota, and New Hampshire when they're working.

Dotty's endless stream of stories and wisdom kept me prompting her, "When you gonna write a book?" She said that she used to maintain a newsletter but that it was a tad tedious and that she had lost all of her old copies. The wheels started to turn in the inevitable direction -- "Do you have a computer", I asked. She did. Well, I went into full-bore teacher mode and proceeded to get her going on her blog.

It dawned on me that 45 minutes had passed and that Genna might be a bit concerned -- I found her and drug her back to the office.

Genna snapped this one as Dotty was getting things going. Dotty was repeatedly interrupted by customers (how rude!!) which allowed Genna and me to marvel at the photos they had used as a slide show screen saver --- professionally composed and exposed -- all beautiful. Frenchy showed up to shake his head at Dotty's new enterprise; Genna coaxed them into a portrait:

Married 49 years and still very much in love!

You can find Dotty's new blog here.

Black Hills & Badlands Part 3 - Dueling Sunsets

Ok. Now we were both armed with our digital cameras and we're ready to go for the sunset. I saw that the sun was getting low fast. In fact, it had disappeared behind a huge cloud on the horizon. I saw that it would re-emerge and then give us about 15 minutes of good shooting. So I started to race up the loop road to the spot we had previously decided would give us the best sunset shots. And I mean race...I was already rehearsing what I was going to tell the park ranger should we be pulled, "Yes sir, I understand, well, you see we're both photographers, actually made a living at it at one time and you see, it's almost sunset...." I decided that speech might not work. Then I remembered getting chastened by a cop in Asheville a couple of weeks ago...

...I was with Reid, my former student teacher, who was working with me at the Computer Literacy Camp. Reid mistakenly went the wrong way up an exit ramp to get to a convenience store. As we were exiting his jeep, the cop pulled up. Reid immediately went into character, "I APOLOGIZE officer, I didn't see the arrows until it was too late, I really APOLOGIZE ..."

I asked him what's up with the "APOLOGIZE " business, I asked. He said, "Every idiot that's pulled says, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry -- it just isn't sincere; you have to say "apologize" if you want it to be sincere and get out of the ticket." The master had learned from the student: "Strong the Force is with this one", Yoda thought.

Back to the sunset. We made it in time and started clicking. It's interesting how different our perspectives were. Here's what I think were the best of Genna's

Maybe you can click to get a larger image -- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't in Blogger.

Here are my favorites of the ones I shot


Genna's are obviously more creative.

And then the thunderstorm came...

We had read about the infamous Badland's thunderstorms and now it looked like we were going to experience one. I wanted to try to capture some lightning strikes...quite tricky, especially with a temperamental digital camera. I got a few but they were mostly lame and all grainy - 8 secs exposure makes the camera go a little nuts...here's the best one


We went back to the Inn as the winds were picking up to 30mph with some stronger gusts -- the tumbleweeds flying across the highway were a riot. And the subsequent lightning storm with the spires of the Badlands in silhouette....awesome.

Black Hills & Badlands Part 2

After the siesta, it was time for dinner before we tried our hand at capturing the Badlands at sunset. But before dinner we hit up the town right outside the park by the name of Interior. Some pictures give you the sense of how tough and stark it was:
We ate at the A&M cafe and I had to have the local speciality -- an Indian Fry Bread Taco.

Yummy -- here's how you can make one at home

Right outside the restaurant, Genna got one of the best pix of the trip -- she called it Satan's Horse given its rather evil expression.


You can see from the light that the sun was starting to get low -- time to go for the sunset.

Black Hills & Badlands Part 1

Good Lord, what we've packed into the past few days....I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by what I think I should post to give you the fullest picture. Rather than trying to create one polished post, I'm falling back on the "dribs and drabs" method to make it easier on me, and probably the readers...

We left Brookings early Thursday (7/21) for the 320 mile trip to the Badlands. We got in around 12:15 local (Mtn) time. After lunch at the Cedar Pass Lodge we attempted to check into our room at the Badlands Inn. The desk clerk was a youngish cross between Crispin Glover and Norman Bates who informed me that I was early. His eerie mien, combined with the stark landscape, the 102 degree heat, and the fact that we appeared to be the only guests (and only people for a couple of miles around) had me looking for Hitchcock' s silhouette.




Badlands Inn after a few more guests checked in.

To kill some time before check in (how American -- I'm in the middle of incredible scenery and I talk about "killing time" -- forgive me -- it was REALLY HOT!) we started a drive down the main loop road. Words essentially fail at describing the Badlands, at least for me, but here's architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935:

“I’ve been around the world a lot, but was totally unprepared for the revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands….what I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere – a distant architecture, ethereal……an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.”


The first of the above Badlands views is mine, the bottom three are Genna's photographs.

We came across one overlook that had a shelter. As luck would have it a fossil talk was just getting started so we hopped out of the car.

Turns out that the Badlands was under water at one time - part of the Western Interior Seaway.

So that means there were a lot of sea creatures where we were now standing on rather arid land. And many of those sea critters had the good fortune to become fossilized about 30 to 35 million years ago. Here's a really old clam. And here's another critter with the Mother of Pearl still intact and quite beautiful.

Since we're on the topic of fossils, I'll go ahead and jump to the next morning's activity -- checking out the Big Pig Dig at the Badlands. From the National Park Service's brochure on the subject:

"The site’s name, the Pig Dig, comes from that first exposed fossil, originally thought to be the remains of an ancient pig-like mammal called Archaeotherium. It was later identified as a Subhyracodon, a hornless rhinoceros, but the name “Big Pig Dig”stuck. Rhinoceroses are found today in Africa and Asia but smaller versions once lived in the Badlands. Archaeotherium has been found at the site, as well as multiple specimens of ancient horses and deer-like creatures. The horses found are three toed and about the size of a small dog. The tiny Leptomeryx resembles a deer standing only a foot high. More than 10,000 bones have been excavated from the site for research purposes.Why so many animals in one small place? Scientists believe that the area was once a spring-fed watering hole, similar to the large watering areas used by African game today. As the climate began to change to semi-arid, the creatures had to travel longer and longer distances to find water. Some perished as they fought to survive after being mired in the soft sediments. Opportunistic animals were drawn to feed on the dead carcasses. Archaeotherium was a scavenger, feeding on both plants and flesh. Theselarge creatures trampled the site, deeply imbedding some bones and breaking upskeletons. Taphonomy is the study of how fossils are formed and preserved. Taphonomists working at the Pig Dig study the position and condition of bones at the site. These scientists attempt to interpret the activities of animals and try to puzzle out the conditions under which death occurred."

All the work is going under a shelter that is about 20' x 40', which is occasionally repositioned as they exhaust the fossil supply in one spot and move to different parts of the ancient watering hole, finding the edges of it as they go. The park intern told us that several tourists ask how so many animals happened to come to the shelter....the consequence of a population, a majority of which doesn't believe in evolution.

A taphonomist contemplating his day's work.

When a fossil or fossil fragments (the more likely scenario) is encountered, the diggers meticulously work to create a plaster cast to remove the section where it can be taken to the lab for further work in controlled conditions. They dig gingerly underneath the section to create a plaster jacket like this:


And here's some fossils that were recovered from the dig:

And some present day life...

Back to the first day...after the fossil talk we went back to the Inn for our siesta...