Rapid City and Crazy Horse

We made a few day stop in Rapid City. Our mailing service, America's Mailbox, moved earlier this year and so we wanted to get our driver's licenses and voting registration updated. We also planned to stop in at our financial advisor who is in the area as well.  One of the main reasons America's Mailbox moved to Box Elder, right next to Rapid City, was to set up a campground that people who are setting up residences here can have an easy place to stay. Of course anyone can stay there. They are planning on expanding and improving it as now it is pretty much just an open field. The office is very nice. America's Mailbox had us fill out forms for the voter registration and they would then take care of it from there. We went down to the license office and had our new licenses within about 20 minutes or so. So easy and people are so friendly and helpful there. We also made a stop at the Social Security office to get addresses changes as Joe had tried several times to do online and it never changed. This also was pretty easy and fast.
As we had been here last year for a week, we had done most of the tourist things. One thing we didn't do was see the Crazy Horse Memorial and so one day we headed there to check it out.
It is the world's largest mountain carving in the world and is still in the process of being worked on. Korczak Ziolkowski,  a New England sculptor, first came to the Black Hills to help Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore in 1939. Chief Standing Bear, of the Lakota tribe, asked him to build a monument of Crazy Horse as a tribute to the traditions and culture to all North American Indians. Ziolowski made his first blast on the mountain  in 1948 and continued it until his death in 1982. His wife and some of his ten children are continuing the process. It is a non profit and they refuse to take any money from the state or federal government and so it will probably take many more years to finish. The entire carving, when done, will be 641 feet long in the round and 563 feet high in the round. The face alone is 87 feet, 6 inches and this part is actuallly completed.

They also have a wonderful Museum and culture center. We watched a very interesting film on the sculptor which encludes footage of him working on it. The Crazy Horse Memorial mountain crew uses precision explosive engineering to carefully and safely remove and shape the rock of the mountain. When Ziolkowski first worked on it, he had veryold equipment. He  would climb up his wooden ladder with all his equipment to where he was drilling which was about 700 feet or so. Sometimes he would get part way or all the way and his old air compressor for his drill would go kaput. He then had to climb all the way down to fix it. Sometimes this might happen a few times in one day. Even with the newer equipment it is a time consuming project.

The picture in the center is what it will look like when it is done. One of the other reasons we are in the Rapid City area is to go to Freightliner for service and also to get the overheating problem fixed. We have been to two other Freightliners and neither could solve the problem. It looks like these people have determined the problem. It needed a new fan clutch and sensor. We took it in one day and then returned the next when the parts came in . Also they worked with the insurance company and the insurance will be paying for the repair. Yeah!!!!!                                                       
                                             

More Lake Poinsett

We have been mostly taking it easy. Joe working a little but both of us have been doing a lot of reading. No TV due to so many trees. We did go out on the Lake kayaking and had an enjoyable few hours doing that. There were very few people during the week but more started coming in for the weekend. It was never filled completely though. We decided to stay through Monday instead of leaving Sunday as per our original plans. Sunday it had been clear and warm. However in the afternoon it started getting cloudy and looked like rain. All of a sudden, it started getting real windy and the waves started getting bigger and were crossing over the sandbags and under the motor home. As we had heard that the previous week had waves on the lake up to 5 feet, we decided to move to higher ground. We packed and moved up to the next level where we were in even more trees and still had a nice view of the water. We certainly have been getting into all types of different weather. Nothing like SO Cal. Took picture of another nice sunset from our new spot.

Biking, Swimming at Lake Poinsett

The weather is so very close to a time we spent in the Dominican Republic. It is uncanny. It is warm and has a very pleasant breeze. Just love waking up to the sounds of the water lapping up against the rocks. Just pure heaven. It makes the rereading of Nick's Blog (one of the blogs we follow of some other nomads traveling around this great country of ours) today so evermore prevalent. Those of us who are capturing this dream are truly blessed. I cannot not even explain the pure solitude we are currently enjoying.

We took a little bike ride around the campground. Later in the afternoon we took a swim right outside our camp spot. Whether we were inside or sitting outside under the awning, our views are fantastic. Being in the water. it again made us realize how much the water has increased. We found out that there should have been more than 20 feet of shosre line instead of none that it has now. We were barely out 3 feet from the shore and we were on our toes to keep our head out of water. It certainly shows the crazy weather patterns our country is currently experiencing. In our travels in the last couple of months we have seen many draught areas and we are now seeing areas of too much normal moisture.

Down the Road Again

The last three days at Rapid City we didn't do too much. We caught up on work, blog, updating addresses for our different accounts, etc and some shopping before we took off. Everytime someone new came into the rv resort now they had motorcycles. It is still a week to the Sturgis run. I can't even image what it will be like next week. In fact , when we left and started ending east towards Lake Poinsett, our next stop, we constantly saw people on motorcycles and trikes, or with motorhomes with trailers filled with bikes. We left around 10 AM and with time change, losing another hour, and stopping for gas and to make ourselves some lunch, it was 700 PM before we got to Lake Poinsett. It is near Arlington and is almost at the SD/Minnesota border. I do a few pictures on the way there. One of the rolled up hay that we saw everywhere. What can I say, I am a girl from Suburbia and thought it was interesting to see. Other picture taken from the car was taken as we drove over the Missouri River.

Long day. However, when we drove into the site and saw our spot, we were excited to see that we have another great place to stay. We are right on the water. THis is the closest to water we have ever been. In fact a little closer than we normally would have been here at the Lake. Unlike other lakes we have been to recently that are way down, this Lake is up from normal. They had an early thaw and then a lot of rain. In one of the pictures here you will see the rocks and sandbags they had to add. There was a pathway where the rocks were that is now 3 or 4 feet under water. About a week ago, they had a hugh storm and many of the summer homes along the lake were flooded.

Sturgis/Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

Today we decided to take a drive starting with Sturgis. The big annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally starts August 9th but we are already starting to see a lot of motorcycles. The expected attendance is around 500,000. Rapid City and Sturgis are small towns and this is a big boom for them. We drove through Sturgis and there were already lots of stands set up with Sturgis t shirts for sale. We drove on to Deadwood but it was getting close to a Rodeo Parade and people were sitting in front of the stores waiting for it. Deadwood is an old mining town and is now a National historical landmark. It looked interesting but we decided to stop by here another time. We kept on driving through the spearfish Canyon byway, another very pretty drive. We saw a waterfall and stopped to take some pictures of the area.

We went back to Mount Rushmore during the evening as we had been told that they spot light the monument once it is dark and it is pretty dramatic. First they have a short film about it and then they asked anyone who was in any of the armed forces or peace corp or who had been in the past to come up on stage. They were given a hugh round of applause. Then they shined the spot lights on the moument. It was dramatic and everyone was feeling patriotic as you would expect.

Water Water Everywhere

It started out a sunny day and we decided to go to Lake Sheridan that we had gone by earlier this week. We put in our kayaks and were taking a leisurely and enjoyable paddle. There were a few people doing some water skiing. We also saw some people jumping off a cliff into the water. Looked fun. As we started ending back, we noticed some dark cloulds coming nearer. THey soogot closer and darker. WHen we were almost back, we heard some thunder. We got the boats on top of the Jeep without any raindrops on our heads. We had only driven for about 10 minutes or so when we started getting some rain. We went a little farther down the road and saw a number of cars on the side of the road. We noticed some hail on the road and stopped to take some pictures. SOme of the hail looked as big as golf balls. I took a picture attached here of the trees. The white you see that looks like snow is hail. We started down the road and we in total shock. There must have been about 50 cars on the side with broken windows, front and back in all the cars. We felt a few hail on our car that must have been the last of it. We were glad that we didn't hurry to much when paddling back as we probably just missed this hail storm by minutes. We felt sorry for all the people with their damaged cars. Again we were lucky that the storm missed the campground just got a lot of rain. What an interesting day.

Custer State Park

Custer State Park is one of America's largest state parks. There are 71,000 plus acres of prarie fields, serene lakes and rugged granite mountains. You should be able to see plenty of wildlife. There is elk, antelope, moutain goats and sheep, deer and 1,500 head of bufallo. We got some pictures of some of these. You drive through windy roads and through small tunnels, several of which are only good for one car at a time . We had to honk to let people at the other end know we wanted to come through. Motorhomes have a different way to get into the camping areas in the Park. We just drove through the area. Plan to try to come back to do some hiking later this week.

Badlands

Monday we just went down to America's Mailboxes to change our address from the Texas one we got in June. As we had decided not to become Texas residents due to Driving License testing and other requirements, we later decided South Dakota was the way to go. We had read or talked to a number of people who said how easy is was. Boy they were right. We got our new address and the people at America's Mailboxes also took care of going down to city hall and getting our car and motorhome registered and also getting our license plates. We just had to give them paperwork on the vehicles. No inspection of the units were needed. Tuesday morning we went to the DMV. From the time we went in the door, it only took about 30 minutes. The people who worked there were great and so friendly. We gave them our passports, SS cards and filled out form with new address, etc. We then just took the eye test and got our new pictures taken. Minutes later we had our brand new permanent licenses. Amazing, compare that to California DMV's which everyone there dreads going to. We are now South Dakotians. Actually this was the seventh state we have been in on this adventure and My, Nikki's, first state I hadn't been to before. So far we think very highly of this state.

Our scenic adventure for the day was to go to the Badlands, about a little more than a hour drive away from Rapid City. We first stopped at Wall as they advertise and advertise all along the drive there about the famous Wall Drug Store. Well we got there and it was big but had all the standard stuff you see at all the gift ships at all the tourist spots. Not impressive to us but lots of people there and so appeals to a lot of people.

We were much more impressed with the Badlands themselves. You are driving through lots of grasslands(also went through Buffalo Gap Natiional Grassland. Brings to mind "Amber waves of grain" from America the Beautiful. Then you stop and walk to a lookout and look out unusual rock formations. A lot of ancient fossils of an arry of estinct animas have been found here and some can be found in the vistor center and museum there. Often you would see a lot of wildlife but we weren't there at the right time of day.

Pactola Lake and Mount Rushmore

We decided to take a drive to check out some of the lakes for possible kayaking later in the week.

Once you get out of the main section of Rapid City, you are in forest areas. More great scenery.

We stopped at Lake Pactola to take some pictures and went into the vistor center. The Lake is the largest reservoir in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Under it is the submerged town of Pactola and an old mining camp from back in the 1870's. Rapid City also had a really bad flood and some areas were not rebill and made into parks. So they have quite a few parks through the center of town. We also went by another lale called Sheridan Lake which we are thinking of kayaking this week.

We decided as we were in the area to go ahead and go to Mount Rushmore. You see pictures of it but it is really awesome to see in person. It was really interesting to read about how it started and how the sculpturing was done. It took 14 years to complete but only 6 and a half years of actual work due to weather amd monetary shortfalls. At first it was to have Old West heros carved into the granite spires of the Needles area in the 1020's and the idea was to promote tourism. Then Gutzon Borglum, a noted artist was convinced to get involved. He was the one who thought of having carvings of Presidents and using a southerly facing body of granite (for proper illumination by the sun) in the Keystone area. It then becamemore of a memorial and Borglum insisted that vistors never be charged to see the sculputure. Though these days there is a parking fee. Most of the sculpting was done by specialized methods for blasting and shaping the granite. There were also smaller models of the 4 Presidents and then measurements ajusted for the actual sculptures.