Wednesday consisted of 730 miles across four states; North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. We finished the tour round the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and headed towards Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, with me in the passenger seat after getting relegated from driving.
The trip to the monument, which was in Montana was roughly a four hour journey through the vast wilderness of the state. There were fields and fields of greenery filled with cows, deer and farms. As we inched closer to the monument there were deep green/purple valleys coloured with white flowers. It was beautiful. The roads are lonely. There’s very few gas stations, rest areas are 60 or more apart and the food options are limited. We arrived at the memorial and were able to use our America the Beautiful Annual Pass to gain free entry again!
So what is the monument? The Battle of Little Bighorn was fought across two days in June 1876. It was one of the last attempts of the Northern Plains Indians to preserve their way of life. More than 260 US Army soldiers lost their lives against thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and his entire unit were among the dead. The Indians won the battle but ultimately lost the war against ending their independent nomadic lives.
The monument takes you across a ten mile stretch of the battlefield with 17 stop points along the way.
The views were expansive and full of hidden valleys for the battlefield. We then made our way towards Devils Tower. The sun was beginning to set again so we didn’t see it with the backdrop of blue sky but instead with the colourful sunset.
Devils Tower was declared the first national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. It was formed by magma and cooled underground later becoming exposed after millions of years of erosion by the Belle Fourche River and the weather. It is 865 feet high and is a favourite for rock climbers! Steven Spielberg used Devils Tower in his 1978 film ‘close encounters of the third kind.’
There is a cute legend that goes along with the tower and that is of a bear and seven girls. There was an Indian tribe camping beside the river and seven young girls were playing nearby. A bear began to chase the girls, jumped up on a theee foot high rock and prayed to it asking the rock to save them. The rock heard their prayers and began to grow upwards higher and higher from the bears reach. The bear was clawing and jumping at the side of the rock but broke its claws and fell. It continued until the rock pushed the girls up to the sky. They are still there now in the Pleiades constellation, 7 little stars. I really like this legend!
We left the tower and ventured to our motel for the evening in Sturgis, South Dakota.
This morning consisted of a trip to Walmart to stock up the car before heading to Mount Rushmore a short 18 mile ride away. I have always wanted to see this amazing memorial and it didn’t disappoint. Comprising of the faves of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, this monument was the brainchild of a South Dakota historian by the name of Doane Robinson in 1923. He wanted to carve Old West heroes in the Needles (the spirelike granite formation in the black hills). He approached sculptor Gutzon Borglum who was working on the confederate memorial on Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Two years later fundraising began after the proposition of it being US Presidents was put forward. Carving didn’t begin until 1927. Washington’s head was completed in 1930. Jefferson’s was completed in 1936 after it was repositioned to the left of Washington and the first head blasted away. Lincoln’s head was completed shortly after in 1937 followed by Roosevelt in 1939. Sadly Borglum passed away two years later so his son, Lincoln oversaw the rest of the completion until it was fully completed on October 31st 1941.
In front of the monument is the avenue of floats which shows when each state joined the union. In the visitors centre they had an exhibition on the sculptor and the creation.
The Crazy Horse Memorial, is a tribute to the Lakota leader, Crazy Horse. He was a warrior and an instrumental part in the battle of Little Bighorn. He was killed in 1877 in Nebraska. He was only in his thirties. On September 6th every year, a night last at the memorial is held to honour Crazy Horse’s short but legendary life as well as the birth of the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski.
Ziolkowski was invited by Lakota Chief Henry Standing Beat to carve the sculpture of Crazy Horse. It stands to honour the culture and heritage of all North American Indians.
His left hand would be pointed forward because he was asked by a white man once, “Where are your lands now?” Crazy Horse replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”
They showed a video about this which was really quite moving! Ruth passed in 2014 but the children continue to work there!
Everywhere we have visited so far today sits in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Jewel cave was established as a national monument in 1908. Ranger Gregory asked “who by?” To which I replied Roosevelt, citing that it was the President, Theodore Roosevelt who designated it. I then got called a brown nose for the trip because I answered the “rhetorical question.” Or I have just paid attention to everywhere we have been…😂
We descended an elevator (yes an elevator in an old cave) to 240ft below the surface.
The map of the cave shows different levels depending on colour and each room and place that has been uncovered has been named. It’s a first come first name basis so whoever finds it, names it. There are some interesting names such as, the ‘big duh’ for the biggest room in the cave so far, ‘the good the bad and the ugly,’ ‘no way through,’ amongst others.
Jewel cave is named for its jewel-like calcite crystals surrounding the passageways. The cave consists of stalactites, soda straws (not to be drunk from), flowstone and pillars. It is one of the worlds largest caves and probably only had 3-5% of it mapped, so it’s gonna be huge!
Still, it would be fun to don a hard hat and boots, have several different light sources and go get lost in a cave hopefully to stumble across a hidden gem no one has before! So that was my new career…cave explorer!
“Take nothing but photos 📷, leave nothing but footprints 👣 , kill nothing but time 🕰”
Our next destination was going to be wind cave to see the box work but sadly we missed the last tour staring at crystals in jewel cave! That was our second cave and they’ve both been so different. A geological wonder. We headed towards Badlands National Park.
We stopped at “Bear Country USA,” pulled up to the window and before we knew it we had been enticed into this drive-thru wildlife park. They had elk,
We left the park and began making our way to Pierre, where we would encounter another time jump forward about a mile from our motel! The town of Pierre was very quiet and everywhere seemed to shut at 9pm which didn’t help us scavengers looking for food! 😂 Another great day!
Until next time….