Day 11: Raining

We slept in a little on the morning of Day 11, because we didn’t have anything planned other than to drive to Cody, Wyoming. We had finished everything we wanted to do in South Dakota in two days (we had originally set aside three days for the state). We packed up our stuff and left Ellsworth Air Force Base around 10. We stopped at the BX to get breakfast from Burger King, which we got about three minutes before breakfast ended.

We ate breakfast on the road and listened to radio reports about the Rolling Stone interview with General McChrsytal. Eastern Wyoming is very flat and boring until you reach the mountains, so we tried to keep ourselves as entertained as possible. It was hard. Emily, Allison, and I watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia on the pull-down TV in the back of the car.

At one scenic view turnout, we read about the Battle of the Hundred Slain which happened near the viewpoint.

We went to check out Fort Phil Kearney nearby, where my dad looked the museum. As we began leaving the Fort, it started raining. Hard. In fact, the rain got so heavy that we had to pull off the interstate and wait on the side of the road until some of the rain subsided. After a few minutes, we began driving again, but we soon had to stop and wait. We couldn't see ten feet ahead of us. The Fetterman MonumentWe stopped at a gas station to get something to eat when the rain had stopped. The next portion of our drive was through the mountains, where there was supposedly more bad weather. Luckily, the weather remained pretty calm through our windy drive in the mountains. On our way down, the weather did get a little foggy, but the rain held off.

By the time we reached Cody, Wyoming, where we were staying for the night and the next day, we had driven a total of about nine hours on what was supposed to be a six hour drive. We pulled into a Holiday Inn and found out that the only rooms they had left were two-roomed cabins, which is exactly the kind of place our family likes. There was also free coffee and snacks inside the huge hotel western shop, which was definitely a plus. Once we had unpacked the car, we drove through Cody to check out the town. We passed a ghost town, a rodeo, and tons of western museums. We pulled into a Mexican restaurant named La Comida, which had some delicious food. It started raining again while we were eating.

When we finished our meal, we went back to our cabin and watched an episode of Psych before falling asleep.

Day 10: Doin' the South Dakota Thang

Day 10 was very similar to a day Liz and I spent in South Dakota on our road trip last year. We basically saw all the highlights of southwestern South Dakota in one jam-packed day.

Our day started back at Wall Drug, where we had breakfast and five-cent coffee for the second straight day. After breakfast, we walked around the stores and bought souvenirs for ourselves and our friends. While my mom, Emily, and I looked for sweatshirts and postcards, my Dad and Allison went to take pictures at all of the lovely Wall Drug attractions. Allison discovers someone using the outhouse.




After an hour or so of shopping, we left Wall Drug.

On our way out of Wall, we stopped by the Wounded Knee Museum (remember, Wounded Knee is about 50 miles south of here). The museum tells the story of what led up to Wounded Knee and then describes the massacre itself with dozens of testimonies from witnesses and survivors. The museum gives an excellent description of the events and has some incredible photographs of what happened. I would highly recommend it for anyone traveling in the area.Another attraction between Wall and the Badlands is the Minutemen Missile National Historic Site, where a missile silo from the Cold War days remains hidden underground. Unfortunately, all the tours were booked well in advance, but we drove to the museum hoping to see the site anyway. When we got there, the park ranger said that the missile itself could not be visited, only the control room could. Since my mom and Emily didn't really care about seeing the missile anyway, we decided to move on.

Our next stop was at the restaurant next to the Badlands Visitor's Center. My parents ordered fry bread and I got an Indian Taco on fry bread and buffalo chili.

When we finished our meal, we bought our last Badlands souvenirs in the gift shop, then headed out for the scenic drive through the rest of the National Park. The scenery, of course, was breathtaking.

When we finished with the Badlands, we drove east to Mount Rushmore.

By the time we got there, clouds had moved in and there was lightning moving towards us. We ran up to the monument, snapped a few pictures, stopped in the gift shop, bought a few postcards, ran into the ice cream store (it was starting to rain now), then ran back out because the line was too long, and finally we ran to the car. Okay, we didn't really run the whole way, but we were moving pretty quickly to get out of the lightning.
After we left Mount Rushmore, we sped over to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which, when completed, will be the largest sculpture on the planet. For a great description of the Memorial, go over to Roadside America: Crazy Horse is being sculpted into pegmatite granite, and no one knows how long it will all hold together. But odds are that when aliens reach earth after civilization has destroyed itself, the biggest man-made thing that they will find will be Crazy Horse. "This," they will say, "must have been the most important person on this planet.
Inside the museum, we watched a hilarious video about Korczak, the kooky old pioneer who promised Chief Standing Bear and the rest of Crazy Horse's people that he would build the memorial to their famous leader. The video told of his days up in the mountains alone (unless you count the mountain goats that followed him around), before he and his young, young wife gave birth to ten wonderful slaves who helped him on his project.

After the video, we walked through the rest of the museum, which was 99% about Korczak and 1% about Crazy Horse. The laser light show "Legends in the Light" started at 9:30, so we waited around in the gift shop until then (which was very nice). When the show finally started, it was raining and lightning outside, so everyone moved inside where we could still see. My dad even bought a bag of popcorn.
What the sculpture will look like when completed.

When the show was finished (it strangely ends on "God Bless the U.S.A.", which is probably not Crazy Horse's favorite song), we left the mountains and returned to Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Day 9: Bury My Heart at Pine Ridge

Our first day in South Dakota was a full one. We left Ellsworth early to go get some breakfast at the greatest roadside stop in the world: Wall Drug. Located in the town of Wall, Wall Drug is a drug store with every type of store and attraction you could imagine in one building. The famous gimmick of Wall Drug is that it has billboards and signs all over the world. On my road trip last year, Liz and I began seeing signs for Wall Drug in Iowa. As photos inside Wall Drug show, there are signs all over the world, including the Great Wall of China, the South Pole, and military bases in Iraq. Inside the Wall Drug, there are stores, a restaurant, a cafe, an ice cream parlor, jewelry shops, leather shops, and a free ice water store. Out back, there is a plastic Mt. Rushmore, a piano-playing gorilla, jackalope, more free ice water, 1500 historical photos, and a giant T-rex. All you could want and more.

We decided to eat breakfast in the Wall Drug diner. We ordered our food, then picked up a five-cent cup of coffee and free ice water and sat down at a table. We all ordered different food, but we each bought one of Wall Drug's renowned homemade donuts. After breakfast, we spent about thirty minutes looking through the stores before we decided to move on. My parents promised we would come back to get souvenirs.

Our next stop was Badlands National Park, which is my favorite of all national parks (#2: Arches National Park, #3: Mesa Verde National Park). Our plan was to do what Liz and I did last year when we visited: first, visit the Ben Reifel Visitor's Center to pick up some information and check out the gift shop, then check out a few hikes, then do the 27-mile scenic drive through the park.

On our way to the Visitor's Center, we noticed a couple cars pulled off to the side of the road and people looking through binoculars. We pulled over to see what was going on.

At first, we didn't notice anything. Just empty Badlands, stretching for miles. Then...we saw them! Two big-horned sheep, the animal we had been waiting for! Big-horn sheep are awesome.

The Visitor's Center was awesome, too. There was a small exhibit that displayed some of the dinosaur fossils that had been found in the park and also what the park looked like during the time of the dinosaurs. There were also displays of different wildflowers and animals that could be found in the park today. In the gift shop, we found a couple great posters of the Badlands that we decided to purchase.

Our first hike was at the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, which had a frighteningly high number of warning signs for rattlesnakes. As we walked along the trail, we saw great views of the park, tall trees, and a pile of animal bones. When we stopped to look at the bones, a little boy walked past us, not even noticing what we were looking at. When his little sister walked by, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned slowly to look at the bones. Seeing that her brother had not noticed the bones, she shouted his name, making sure he saw them. "Uhh...Kyle?" she said, slowly pointing to the pile.

We finished the hike sweaty and most likely sunburned. The temperature was in the high 80s, which is not terrible for the Badlands (it was high 90s last year), but the sun was beating down on us the entire time. Back in the car, we reapplied more sunscreen and drank water and Gatorade.

Our next hike was on the Notch Trail, which the Visitor's Guide describes as "moderate to strenuous. After meandering through a canyon, this trail climbs a ladder and follows a ledge to "the Notch" for a dramatic view of the White River Valley. Watch for drop offs. Not recommended for anyone with a fear of heights. Treacherous during or after heavy rains."

Coming into the canyon, some people heading back to the parking lot informed us that they had heard "tons of rattlers" in the grass alongside the trail. We walked for a few more minutes before Emily and I started hearing them. They sounded like shaking maracas. We couldn't see them, but we heard them everywhere we walked from that point on. There is probably a rattlesnake somewhere in this picture.

Although the ladder looked pretty steep, it was actually fairly easy to climb. The next part of the trail was not so easy. It involved sidestepping across open rock cliffs. We debated whether or not we should continue, but I told my family that the cliffs would be over soon and the rest of the hike was not nearly as dangerous.

The rest of the hike was fine, although we did stop a few times for water and to reapply sunscreen. When we reached the notches, there was one more steep climb before we could stand comfortably and look out across the badlands. After gazing for a while, we turned around and headed back to the parking lot. There were two other trails, Window and Door, that began at the same parking lot. These trails were only about a hundred meters or so, so we hiked them quickly. The Door Trail opened up to some beautiful badland scenery. It was like walking into a giant nature playground.

Praying to the rain gods.

After the hikes, we decided that we should come back to do the scenic drive the next day. It was getting late and we still wanted to visit the site of the Wounded Knee Massacre before it got dark. It was about fifty miles from Badlands to get to the site, but it was one of the places we really wanted to visit during our trip. Wounded Knee is located in the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is for the Oglala Sioux, which contains the two poorest counties in the United States.

As we drove through the reservation, we noticed some historical signs that lead up to the Massacre at Wounded Knee. When we arrived at the site where Wounded Knee was supposed to be (according to the GPS), we couldn't find the monument or the cemetery, so we pulled over to ask someone.

The woman we asked was named Kathy and she is a lifelong resident of the Pine Ridge Reservation. She was selling some Oglala jewelry and dreamcatchers, so we looked through them and the girls bought some. After she told us where the Wounded Knee site was, she told us more about the history of Pine Ridge and described many of the problems that they face. I highly recommend that you check out the Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation website, which will tell you ways you can help out the people of Pine Ridge. They always have lists of things you can donate (school supplies, clothing, blankets, etc.) and if you check out the blog here, you will see the latest projects that need items.Kathy's jewelry stand

After saying goodbye to Kathy, we walked across the street to the site of Wounded Knee, where we read a sign about what happened 120 years ago. Notice that the word "MASSACRE" has been nailed onto the sign. It used to read "BATTLE" before it was regarded by the United States government as a massacre. From the sign we walked up the hill to the cemetery, which has since been expanded into a town cemetery. In the middle is the mass grave for all those who were killed during the 1890 massacre. The rest of the graves were newer and they were very nice to look at because they were all so different and had such colorful decorations (see the grave at the beginning of this post).

When we left the Wounded Knee site, we went into the town of Pine Ridge, where we got food and gas. From there, we went to the Red Cloud Indian School, a Jesuit school where one of my friends will be teaching for the next two years. It was a beautiful school. We met a Jesuit named Brother Bill and my mom met a priest named Father Mike. After we looked around the school, we walked up to the nearby cemetery which is where the famous Chief Red Cloud is buried. The cemetery looked similar to the Wounded Knee cemetery with the colors and assorted types of gravestones.

Next, we walked back down to the school church. The old school church burned down in the late 90s but the rebuilt a gorgeous new church. Brother Bill told us that the Stations of the Cross were all painted by different Oglala artists from Pine Ridge. When we finished looking at the school, we went back to the car and headed back to our hotel, after a very long day.

Day 8: The Battle of Little Bighorn

We left the Super8 early on Day 8 and headed for the Little Bighorn battlefield. Our first stop was at the museum, which had some nice dioramas to help us picture the battle. While we were waiting for the Ranger talk to start at 10:30, we looked through the bookstore in the gift shop.

The Ranger talk was given by Park Ranger Steve Adelson, who is a former high school teacher and football coach. This quickly became evident in his description of the battle, which sounded like a motivational pep-talk given during halftime at a football game. My mom made the fatal mistake of sitting in the front row during the talk, where she was used as a prop for things that happened during the battle. After the talk, we walked around the battlefield. Our first stop was at the monument to the 7th Cavalry men that died at the battle. In front of it was the hill where Custer and many of his men died. There were gravestone markers that marked the spot where men fell (this was not a cemetery, the gravestones just marked where the men fell). There was a black grave marker that showed where Custer himself fell.From the monument, we walked across to the monument built for the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors who died during the battle. From the monuments we walked over to the main cemetery for the U.S. soldiers who died during the battle. After the cemetery, we drove along the ridge of the battle out to the spot where Major Reno and Captain Benteen’s battalions were positioned during the battle. There were markers along the way to the site that described what was happening during the battle.

On our way out to the site, a weird thing happened. Horses started crossing the road and blocking cars. The weird thing wasn’t the horses themselves, it was what they were doing. As each horse came out into the road, it began bobbing its head up and down very quickly. Watch:


When we reached the Benteen/Reno site, Allison, my dad, and I did an hour-long walking tour of the site. My dad had recently finished a book on the battle, so he was as good as any guide in describing the places we were looking at and what happened there.
There were markers all over the battlefield for the U.S. soldiers, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors who fell during the battle.
When we finished looking at the battlefield, we went back to the bookstore to pick up a few books and souvenirs. Then, we left the park and headed for South Dakota.

The drive took about seven hours, but we finally reached the Ellsworth Air Force Base around 9 or 10 at night, where we checked into our new lodgings. We got to see a remarkable South Dakota sunset along the way, as well as a dry lightning storm, which are always awesome.