We went to church this morning and then pulled out of the campground in Hill City. We stopped at Crazy Horse Memorial on our way to Rapid City. It was really nice to see how one man from Boston wanted to sculpt mountains. He came to So Dakota and worked with the sculptor of Mt Rushmore side by side sculpting that mountain. An indian chief approached him and asked if he was sculpt a mountain to honor the indians. He agreed and began to work single handedly to sculpt Crazy Horse. He had to build a stairway of 741 stairs to get to the top of the mountain each day to begin blasting. He had little money and an old air compressor which he would start and begin his climb to the top carrying all his tools and dynamite. Most days he would get half way up and the air compressor down below would quit. He'd have to go back down and start it again and resume his climb to the top. Some days he would have to repeat this scenarior 4-5 times before he could actually work. He then married and had 10 children. He said he needed those children (5 boys & 5 girls) to help him work the mountain. After several years he died and the mountain was far from finished. His wife and sons & daughters took over the project and still work it today. It has a long way to go before it will be finished. Probably won't see it done in our lifetime. When finished it will stand taller than the Washington Monument. It is huge.
We are staying at a membership campground for the next 3 days. This place is beautiful. We had to listen to a half hr talk on buying into this place to get the special rate of $39.95 for 3 days. Think we are just going to veg out and enjoy the campground for a few days. We have another campground booked 5 minutes from here for 5 more days so we can see the sights around here. We still need to see Sturgis (motorcycle rally going on beginning Aug 9th,,,,but they are all arriving now). We still need to see Deadwood from here and a few very scenic drives before we move on. We should be able to do that staying another 5 days. We are only allowed 3 days in this place and have to move on. So we will be in Rapid City until Monday, Aug 2nd.
pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/motorhome234
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