Big Sky Country

Argh, I just typed a lot of words and lost them all (not the first time) because this system doesn't save stuff for me and I pushed the wrong button.

We had stopped for the night at a motel that was close to our morning sightseeing destination -- Mount Rushmore.  In the morning we got up and drove through miles of tourist "attractions" that were all quiet, waiting for summer. This is one of the unsung advantages of traveling in the winter; we have the whole place to ourselves almost everywhere we go.  Last year we just walked right into the Uffizi Gallery, no lines. Two years ago we had all of Canada to ourselves.

So we got to Mount Rushmore, we had several clear views from the road, we decided if we wanted to know more about it we could just look at Jon's phone.  We pushed on to Crazy Horse.

We were completely unprepared for Crazy Horse, having read nothing about it and no one had warned us.  It is a privately owned and operated institution, and we decided to pay for the tickets and go in.  There is a huge complex of buildings, beautifully constructed of tongue-in-groove Ponderosa Pine, all filled with artifacts, photos, papers, sculpture. It is supposed to be a museum about the North American Indian but it is really a museum about the man who started this project in 1947.

When we arrived we were greeted by a cheerful ticket lady who said we were just in time for the movie. I said I needed to go to the bathroom first, so they waited to start the movie because Jon and I were the only ones going into this big auditorium.

The story is about Korczak Ziolkowski, a Boston-born Polish sculptor who was invited by some Native American leaders to create a monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  He had worked on Mount Rushmore with the sculptor so he used the same methods (dynamite) but his vision was much, much grander.  He started by himself, climbing up the mountain with tools strapped to him, and he worked for years alone.  Eventually he met and married another visionary and they had ten children and this family has continued to work on this immense project since Korczak died over 30 years ago --which will never be finished in any of their lifetimes.

While we were truly amazed at the scope of this efffort, and the tenacity of this family, and the vast output of  this artist, and his incredible work ethic, we were aware that this is a story being told  by these people and we wondered whether there were other stories that were not told. It has the quality of myth to it, for sure. There are ancillary projects: a university for North American Indians, a hospital.  It is all funded privately because this guy believed that was the way to go.  Jon is reading a NYT article that tells some of the backstory, as we suspected.

The rest of the day we spent cruising through beautiful landscapes in South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.  The colors changed all day long as the sun moved -- we started with browns and oranges and reds and by dusk it was all violet and blue and grey.  Sometimes everything was covered with snow, looking like baked meringue with little peaks and sometimes it was all open grassland with mule deer (we think) grazing in small groups.  Jon spotted two bald eagles, perched on fence posts.  Benjamin called and couldn't believe how unequipped we are in the audio entertainment realm.  We are just looking out the window and talking and sometimes listening to Sirius radio.  But we have gone for long periods forgetting to turn on the radio.  Jon told him to send us a list of suggestions for podcasts in case we run out of things to talk about or look at (Benj joked that we will need this to keep our marriage intact).

We stopped for the night in Butte and we even went out for a steak dinner.  We eat in the car by day (Jon does all the food prep while I drive) and we go to a restaurant at night.  It is an easy life, requiring only a credit card and a dependable car.  So far the car has been great -- although it is completely coated in salt and will need a rinse pretty soon. 

(Jon will put photos in later.  Stay tuned.)