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.
HOW DID YOUR DAD GET ON THE JACKALOPE???? My life won't be complete until I sit on that jackalope.
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