Sonya's Blog Day 9 - The Black Hills

Sonya’s Blog - Canada Day - The Black Hills, South Dakota

We started our day off nice and early this morning by going for a trail ride at 8 AM. It was an hour and half ride to Elkhorn Ridge. My horse was named Art and he was very tall. He was a really good horse, but he liked to go off trail and walk beside the other horses instead of in single file. It was very pretty and Elkhorn Ridge is really neat. We didn’t see very many other animals, just white tail deer. The horse stables were right at the campground, so we didn’t have far to go. We headed back to the RV after the ride to give Kizzy a little walk. I had a very bruised bottom from my trail ride.

We then headed off to The Crazy Horse Memorial which was just down the highway a bit. This is another mountain carving project, similar to Mt. Rushmore, but this one is to honour the Lakota Indian Crazy Horse, who was stabbed in the back by an American Soldier during a battle. It is going to be a massive carving of Crazy Horse on his horse pointing out towards the Black Hills with the quote “My lands are where my dead lie buried”. They have been working on it for 50+ years, but only the face is complete and a lot of rock has been blasted away. They have no timeline for completion, but I am thinking at least 20 more years. At first it was slow going because they only had the one worker, but now there is a small crew, but nothing like the crew that worked on Mt. Rushmore. They have very ambitious plans for that area around Crazy Horse, with a University now open (with expansions planned), a museum and Art Gallery as well as a restaurant and snack area. We took the bus tour to the base of the mountain. There was a van ride that we could take right to the top, but it would have been $500, so we passed. The bus ride was only $4 each. This project gets no federal funding, all of their funding comes from admission prices, the tours and spending at the site as well as donations. So it could take many many more years before it is complete. They said they are going to start carving the horses head sometime this summer.

This picture is of the actual carving in the mountain

This is the plaster model and what the mountain will look like if they complete it!

We had lunch at Crazy Horse, then left to pick up Kizmet and headed out onto the Needles Highway towards Sylvan Lake. The Needles Highway goes through a very cool area of the Black Hills where the formations are very tall and pointy. We got lots of pictures. It is a very narrow highway with tiny tunnels on it, you cannot tow on that highway and I wasn’t sure our truck was going to fit, we had to bring our side mirrors in. We went to Sylvan Lake which was a pretty little lake area, with tons of rocks in the water and a 11/2 mile walk around the lake and they allowed dogs! It was a really neat walk with lots of cool rock formations, caves and narrow passageways. We all really liked Sylvan Lake and hiking around that area.

After that, we drove the rest of the Needles Highway. It was a very windy, narrow highway with spectacular views.

We headed back to camp and realized that we would not be able to do the steam engine train ride between Hill City and Keystone as the Needles Highway took too long. We had already been to Hill City, which we liked, so we decided to have supper and then just drive over to Keystone to check it out. It was okay, but really touristy. So we had a quick look around, saw the cutest 10 week old Husky - Kizmet and Shadow were very happy to have met each other. Then we headed back to camp to clean up and get ready to leave tomorrow. Blake and Isaac went and played mini-golf while Tash and I did all the dishes from the day and packed a lunch for tomorrow. Next time Tash and I will go play while the boys do the work. It started to rain right before bed and by Midnight or 1 AM it was a full blown thunderstorm with very high winds and heavy rain. We had left our vents open on the roof and I jumped up to close those. Kizmet was cowering beside our door having a full blown panic attack. She kept looking up at the roof like we were under attack. There was water pouring in through the vent in the roof in the kitchen area, luckily it is all floor there. I got it all cleaned up and everything shut up tight. Luckily, Blake had brought in the awning already because the neighbours awning had some tears and rips in it from the storm.

Figured out I had read that John Grisham book already at 4 chapters in, but kept reading a few more chapters to make sure. Indeed, I have read it. Moved onto a classic now that I not read, Madam Bovary. We will see how that goes, so far it is not managing to keep me awake, I keep dropping off while trying to read it.

That's it for today. Hope everyone had a great Canada Day!