We're in South Dakota!
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2007
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11
14
Trip End
Jul 29, 2007
Keystone,
South Dakota,
United States
Thursday, July 26, 2007
At my last entry, I was in our hotel room in Cody, Wyoming, and it was early morning on Tuesday. At least it was early when I started. By the time I got the thing posted and got a shower and got all the luggage into the car, it was almost 11:30. I went down the block to meet up with the rest of the family where they were enjoying the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Center. Of course, by the time I got there they were just about finished. I got to see just a little bit, then it was time for us to go.
This is a beautiful facility though. It is actually five different museums or exhibits in one. There's a Museum of Natural Hisory, the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indians Museum, the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, and the Cody Firearms Museum
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.One of the very cool things I saw first was in the Buffalo Bill Museum. In different sections on the wall was a comparison of the timeline of Buffalo Bill's life against what was going on in the rest of the world. Something that caught my eye was the fact that during the early part of the career of Buffalo Bill, elsewhere in the world Karl Marx was writing the "Communist Manifesto". Now, in my limited brain space where world history has any cells assigned to the subject, I never would have put those two things in the same time frame. Shows what I know!
I was then able to scoot over to the firearms display, and there again, while I'm interested in the subject, I certainly have a glancing knowledge at best. But, I can tell you this... this is a very, very well put together assemblage of most, if not all, of the progression of the art of firearms throughout history. Lots and lots of what may be one-of-a-kind examples of vintage guns from all over the world. Very interesting.
As the rest of the group left no doubt that it was time to move on, we began our trek towards Sheridan, Wy. where we were to spend the next night. This was our main focus of the day as it was projected to take the bulk of the day, which it did
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. One place we came into was called Greybull, Wyoming. Elaine's mom spotted a quilting store and Dad was flexible enough to agree to pull it over so she could take a look. Well, the rest of us figured that there was no possible way she was gonna make it out of there in the allotted 15 minutes Dad had given her, so we bailed out of the car and began to look around. We spotted the local Chamber of Commerce and, two doors down, the Sugar Shack. We decided we deserved some root beer floats while we waited. David was carrying his sketch pad and showed us a drawing he had been working on in the car of a wolf, and as we were praising him on his drawing, I jokingly told him he should take it into the Chamber of Commerce and have them run a copy of it and see if they would put it in their front window. Well, do you know that he did just that! And guess what? The woman he spoke to had an affinity for wolves and was an artist herself! She not only ran a great copy of his drawing, but let him sign it and put under his signature where he is from and she put it right into the front window!The rest of the day was relatively uneventful... just lots of driving, and soon enough we made it to Sheridan, Wyoming. We found our hotel, then took some advice and a recommendation and had dinner at a place downtown called "Oliver's". Wow, what a great meal. Great service, imaginative plate presentations, a well-varied menu, a tastefully appointed dining room, and not overpriced
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. Very nice.That was last night. This morning we moved on to Keystone, South Dakota. I believe we will be here for two nights. On the way here today we stopped for lunch at a Pizza Hut in the town of Custer, SD. and as soon as we were seated, which took some scrambling since we were a party of seven at 1:30 in the afternoon, a big thunderstorm came up and there was pea-sized hail along with big fat drops of rain. It hadn't even looked like rain was coming when we pulled into the restaurant, but all of a sudden, there it was.
We began to doubt how long it would last and whether it would affect our sightseeing plans for the day, but as we plodded our way toward our next destination it did clear up a bit. We made it to Mount Rushmore Memorial Park and had our visit there. Funny. but as we were entering the park and proceeding towards the observation area, we heard music and what sounded like cheering, so as we approached the amphitheatre area we were greeted with the presence of several hundred persons which we guessed were Air Force recruits, by the insignias on their shirts. There were quite a few seated in the amphitheatre and more were coming up the hill to our right while jogging and calling cadence.
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Well, we sat down and watched for a while and as the last group came up the trail and joined the others, the US flag was brought out onto the stage, music was started up, and the National Anthem was played while the recruits and the public stood, they in salute, we with hands over hearts. Col. Joe Abbott came to the microphone and announced that, indeed, these were Air Force recruits who had just today finished a phase of their training and had come to the facility today at the end of a two-mile hike/run up Mount Rushmore. This, in fact, was the very first time one of these classes of recruits had been assembled there at Mount Rushmore for a recognition ceremony. We just happened to be there at the right time and at the right place to see something which had never been done before! Very cool. Awards were given out to outstanding recruits in several endeavors of training and the crowd was very enthusiastic in their appreciation of these men and women. It was a truly moving experience.
Having done that, we figured we'd go for broke and try to also squeeze in a visit to the Crazy Horse Memorial, which was just down the road. I don't know if you know anything about Crazy Horse, or the memorial which is under construction, but the pictures I will post will give you some idea what it's all about. We watched an orientation film about the project and that answered a lot of my quesitions about it, including "What's taking so long?"
This project was started in about 1948 and at first glance it doesn't look like they've gotten very far
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. But when you take into consideration the manpower, the money, the weather, etc. it all begins to make sense. And in reality, there has been much more done that is not easily apparent. When finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture, by far. In fact, the four faces of Mt. Rushmore could fit in the space that will be just part of the head of Crazy Horse, behind the eyes.Well, I'll be going. I have to get to the photo posting part of this entry and it's already 11:30. We'll be here tomorrow and tomorrow night. I'm not sure what we have planned in this area tomorrow, but you can bet it won't be boring!
Good night,
Quinn
