Mountains and mountains of rocks…I mean heads.

Tuesday afternoon found us at Crazy Horse memorial which is…crazy. They have been working on this sculpture, which will end up being the largest in the world, for 60 years. Louis came with his family back in 92 and in the sixteen years since then the only thing that has been accomplished is…the face. That’s right in 60 years the only piece of the statue that is completely carved out of the rock is the Chief’s face. Above you see what it will eventually look like, and in the background, what it actually looks like. The horses head is only painted on the side of the mountain wall where eventually it will be located. The original sculpture was so adamant about it being a non-profit memorial that they only function on donations and admissions to the park that he twice refused a 10 million dollar donation from the federal government. The result is to never see it finished I am convinced. Now Mt. Rushmore on the other hand was completely astounding, even going through the great depression it only took 13 years from start to finish. AND they used the blasted off rock for the pillars, walkways, and archways leading into the memorial. Very resourceful and very classy look I might add. The rock in the Black Hills is mesmerizing. I’ve never seen rock that is so light colored when dry and SO dark when wet. It absolutely sparkles, it’s fascinating. Alright, enough rambling about the rock. Rushmore only took a few minutes before we hit the highway again. On the way up to our hotel we stopped at this complete tourist trap which boasts an alpine slide. Louis and Dar went up the lift to come down the slide while I took pictures. Dar surprised us; I thought he would be scared of both the lift and the slide, boy was I wrong. As they got on the lift Dar hollered down to me a cheery, “Bye Mom.” I waited for them to come down the slide assuming they would be going slow and seeing a terrified look in Dar’s face. NOPE! They come whipping down there and both Louis and Dar are laughing there heads off. He absolutely loved it and Louis even said it was really cool. Dar of course wanted to go again with me, but it was getting late, we were getting tired, and it was not worth the fee to go again.