The campground is just a stones throw away from the busy 4-lane US Highway 385/16 which makes it very noisy during the day and late into the evening. It also has no electric, no water or dump station utilities to fill and empty our tanks, or awesome views like our previous site.
What it does have is the fact that it's only a 4½-mile drive down US Highway 385 from the entrance to the Crazy Horse Memorial and that's why we're here.
Normally we would wait until tomorrow to get out and sightsee, but the weather forecast is not looking favorable to any outdoor activities tomorrow.
So around 5:00PM we loaded into ROVER and drove down to check out the memorial site. The first order of business was to grab some dinner and then check out the entire complex they have built around the memorial.
There are three separate museums here, a gift shop, a learning center, a theater and most importantly a restaurant.
The carving of the mountain began 75-years ago in 1948. Progress is slow, currently a crew of only 10 carvers and 8 engineers are working at any given time. They only work 4½ days a week, Monday through Friday at noon, and when lightening is detected within a 15-mile radius of the mountain all work must stop and the mountain vacated for a minimum of 30-minutes. If another lightening strike occurs, the timer is reset for another 30-minutes.
That means more work is accomplished in the freezing winter season than the summer thunderstorm season, which we will be experiencing tommorow.
My Tatanka (buffalo) Stew on the left and Tricia's Native American Taco on the right.
We also sampled the Raspberry Kuchen [not pictured] for desert (the official state desert).
This is the area they are currently actively carving.
The light show itself is very dated (1980s), but at the time stretched the capabilities of the equipment. Starting next season these funds will be redirected towards something more current, but as yet haven't been announced.
(as seen from the upper parking lot through our windshield) [just like at the drive-in theater].
I'm so glad we went to see the Crazy Horse Memorial yesterday while under such clear skies.
We will be moving on tomorrow, just 16 miles down the highway to another Black Hills National Forest campground, this time to see something underground, so the weather won't be a factor.
There is more to the story than I can tell here, but what I truly found inspiring about the whole Crazy Horse Memorial is the dedication of the man that Chief Henry Standing Bear, and the other Lakota tribal leaders, hired to actually carve the memorial.
Little did they know when the offered the job to Korczak Ziolkowski that they would be hiring an entire family for generations to come. The tribal leaders took it as a sign, that since Korczak was born 31-years to the day after Crazy Horse was murdered, he was the correct choice.
Korczak, his wife Ruth, and their 10 children (5 boys and 5 girls) all worked in one way or another to help carve the mountain. When Korczak passed away in 1982 his wife continued to administer the foundation funding the carving effort. The children, who had all been working on the mountain for some 30+ years at this point, continue the work on the mountain to this day.
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