Custer, Crazy Horse and All the Presidents

behind the hills of Custer

Before we left Cody and the cowboys and Indians behind, we replenished supplies and made phone contact with our cell phone system provider, now confident that we would have service for the phone and internet. We were still trying to avoid Sturgis and were advised to follow Highway 16 to Custer and get to Mt Rushmore from there. Highway 16 was another steep and severely winding road, steeper than anything we have encountered so far, and to make it more challenging, just throw in roadworks to the mix.

What we climbed - we had to descend. At one stage we had to stop at traffic control and had Freddie engulfed in smoke from the overheated brakes. Panic in Wendy’s eyes and voice, so we stopped in the next pullout and let it all cool down. We came across a train [a long, long  one] hauling coal to Newcastle which brought a chuckle.

Arriving in Custer we found the main street blocked by people dressed in confederate soldiers uniforms directing traffic and detouring us to a back street to park.

bikes

Curious to know what was happening, I climbed up the back ladder of Freddie to see thousands of bikes and bikers blocking the street without an inch of room to spare between…Harleys mostly….Sportsters, Fatboys, Trikes, Choppers, you name it - but I did see a couple of Triumphs - and merchandising tents with all sorts of bike gear, clothes, and banners. Things like “I’ve ridden Sturgis 2011”. 

Mt Rushmore

I was GOBBSMACKED by the sheer numbers, so we went for a walk along the street just to take it in. We had lunch in a bakery/café in amongst the biker crew. I never saw any Colours of any outlaw gangs being strutted and the guys we talked to were just regular guys - accountants, solicitors and a dentist.

We are told that the best time to see Mt. Rushmore was in the morning, but we couldn’t get into the close campgrounds (no prizes for guessing who had taken up all the sites), so we backtracked about 6 miles and found a State Park Campground called Commanche — no facilities but we are fully self-contained so it was all good.






 Next day we had to choose our route to Mt Rushmore wisely to bypass the narrower roads with the tunnels as Freddie is too tall and too wide.

On arrival at the entry we were directed to the RV parking which to my surprise was more convenient than the general parking lot, usually the RV’s are out in the back. Mt Rushmore is a shrine to four leaders (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt) who have brought America from its colonial times into the 20^th century. It features their faces carved out of the mountains of the Black Hills. Upon entering the exhibition area we found the sunlight shining on all the presidents faces and looking up through the colonnade of State Flags and plaques stating when they joined the Union, Wendy took her photo’s.

We went to the theatre and watched a movie on the making of Rushmore, and then checked out the memorabilia as the place filled with more and more bikers. Whilst the spiel is all very patriotic and pro-America it felt a little over-the-top and the propaganda machine was in full swing here.

Wendy’s attention was caught by a little boy who was excitedly asking his mother, “Is that legal mom, is it, is that legal?”  She looked across at an unusual sight – amongst the bikers was a woman wearing psychedelic flares and on her top was nothing but body paint. The bikers were keen to be photographed with her; Wen got one quick shot and off we went.


When we were back in California we were told about another mountain sculpture in the Black Hills area. It was described as ‘the Indian answer to the Mount Rushmore’. When I made enquiries at Mt Rushmore I got the feeling the staff were avoiding my questions and didn’t want to tell me where it was, so I approached an American Indian looking biker and he told how to find ”Crazy Horse Mountain”.

We had to backtrack a ways but were so pleased to have found it. It is being built by the wife and descendants of sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, who originally worked at Mt Rushmore with the sculptor of the Presidents, Lincoln Borglum. When Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear heard about Mt Rushmore, he wrote to Korczak and asked for his help. He said, “My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes also.”
So they agreed to carve Crazy Horse out o the Black Hills. A ‘free enterprise’ project and no government funds it was started in 1947. They use dynamite to carve out the rock but this one is huge and so far, only the head and the basic shaping of the sculpture is complete.

Crazy Horse - August 2011 

Crazy Horse Sculpture

It is a huge undertaking, very visionary and whilst unfinished, there is still so much to see, learn and absorb at the information and exhibition centre where Native American artists and crafts people demonstrate their skills. There is also an Indian Museum and a sculptor’s studio. They say it will dwarf the ‘presidents’ when it is finished.


It will be the largest mountain carving in the world and as a memorial to American Indians will include The Museum of North America and the Indian University of North America and a Medical Training Centre – probably not in our lifetime but if ever you get to the Black Hills of South Dakota you must check out both Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore.

Indian Prayer