We want to spend most of our time showing Drichab Anna the sights
in Yellowstone Park, so we only hit a couple of places in the Black Hills.
The first one was Wind Cave in the
southernmost portion of the park. Adina and Drichab Anna wanted to see Wind Cave because they
both like caves and had never been there.
I really wanted to see Wind Cave for a personal reason. I’d only been there once before – 43 years
ago.
It was sort of like the picture on the right if you subtract the shade cover, the extra framing and the extra strap in front between the shoulder straps. Pete's carrier was a metal oval with a bag hanging down. The straps were two pieces of webbing, no padding. It was simple, but it did the job.
Wind Cave is a multi-level cave, one of the longest in the world. Some 130+ miles have been explored. We didn't walk that far, not this trip!
On my first tour through the cave, we squeezed through narrow passages, so narrow that I had to take Pete from my back and we passed him through the passage, hand over hand, down the line of strangers. We climbed ladders up and down, handing Pete up separately as most of the ladder-passages were too narrow to carry him.
As we went through the cave, Pete's eyes were wide as he looked at everything. He cooed and gurgled and grinned, having the time of his little life. Everyone loved him, of course, not that I am prejudiced about thinking that they should.
Wind Cave was like no other cave I had ever seen. I never forgot the experience and was looking
forward to seeing how the cave had changed. I knew it would be more civilized now. Humans do that, make things easier for
themselves. Instead of ladders, there
were steps and a concrete path with ridges for the slopes. When we had descended 220 below the surface
on 280 steps or so, an elevator whisked us back to the surface, ½ a miles from
where we had begun.
Wind Cave is a very dry cave, located at 5000+ feet. Because of its dryness, it doesn’t have
stalagmites and stalactites. Instead, it
has some unusual features, three of them. The Sioux believe that it is the birthplace of their people. The Trickster lured them out of the cave and then they could not find the entrance to return. Kristen, our guide, showed us the hole that was the original entrance and maybe where the Sioux left the cave centuries ago.
Popcorn formations cling to the ceiling. They are little white bumps, like tiny upside
down snow heaps. They exist in other
caves but don’t usually get much attention because of other, more spectacular
features. Wind Cave also contains
frostwork, looking as if all the ridges are tipped with frost.
One of the most amazing and unusual features is the boxwork
which clings to ceilings and some walls.
We learned that 95% of all the boxwork in the world is found in Wind
Cave. The other 5% are scattered in
caves all over the world. Here are some
pictures of boxwork:
 |
| Boxwork with Frostwork |
 |
| Just like a jig-saw puzzle |
After we left Wind Cave, we opted to skip Mount
Rushmore. Okay, I know that is sacrilegious
but in our limited time we had another stop we wanted to make and it would have
required several hours more of twisty mountain driving that would have taken us
out of our way. Lest our trip record be
incomplete, here is a picture of Mount Rushmore which we didn’t see. Now we can all see it together on this blog.
We drove north up the west side of the Black Hills, drinking
in the beauty of the place. Our second
Black Hills stop is one that we all wanted to see. Early in this century, Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, felt
that the Mount Rushmore sculpture didn’t tell the whole story. Mount Rushmore honors four important US Presidents who helped lead and
mold the taming of the west. Henry
believed that a similar kind of monument should be carved to honor the part
that Native Americans played in the early days of this country. He commissioned Korczak Ziolkowski, a
sculptor, to choose a mountain and carve such a monument. Korczak chose Thunderhead Mountain, sacred to
the Oglala tribe for the carving. He began
the project in 1948. An Indian Museum of
North America and a Native American Cultural Center are also part of the
Monument. We enjoyed the Cultural
Center, watched Native artisans at work and left a few of our tourist dollars
there.
Korczak chose to carve an image of the great Native leader, Crazy Horse.This great sculpture was something we wanted to see. When I saw it 43 years ago, it consisted of a
ledge and a hole in the mountain. I
wanted to see what had changed. Adina and
Drichab Anna just plain wanted to see it.
We figured an hour or so should suffice for our visit. We stayed longer than that.
Thunder Mountain has indeed changed. You can see that much sculpting has been
done.
Crazy Horse’s face is complete and magnificent, 87 feet high. The heads of the US Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high. This picture shows the face in clear detail.
When it is finished, the sculpture will show Crazy Horse and his horse emerging from the mountain. He holds his arm outstretched. According to Korczak, he is answering a rude
question asked by a white guy after the final defeat of the Native people: “Where
are your lands now?” Crazy Horse
replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”
A sad word, full of pain. Korczak did not live to see even today’s
progress on the sculpture. He died in
1982. Now his sons carry on his work. Will his grandchildren and
great-grandchildren finish the work? I
do hope so.
After driving out of the Black Hills, we stayed last night
at a Very Expensive KOA at Spearfish, SD.
It was a nice place and we were happy to use their laundry. One couple stopped and decided they wanted a
rig just like ours. Of course, we showed
our trailer off with pride.
This morning, we met a couple who were full-timing it. We aren’t quite doing that but it sure
sounded like fun. They had a lovely
puppy with them and Winston got to meet their bear (whose name I have forgotten) and Lucy Lion. We all enjoyed playing with them in that way. We all compared notes on how we had remodeled our trailers. We enjoyed spending an hour with
them before hitting the road.
Wyoming is full of wide open spaces, mountains, ranches and
stretches of sage brush. It is so
restful to see country like that. 
We rode Interstate 90 all day, inching up steep hills at 45 mph and not driving at the 75 mph speed limit. The couple who liked our trailer honked and waved and smiled as they passed us and over the next foothill/mountain. Many stretches of road in Wyoming are red, from the red rock in the area which makes a nice change.
We made one stop today, at the Battlefield of the Little Big
Horn National Monument, just north of Garyowens and near Crow Crossing, Montana. This is the site
of Custer’s Last Stand. The Indians won
this battle, but lost the war to retain their ancestral way of life. The US government was determined to get them
off the land that was so useful to settlers and to confine the Native people to a reservation. Their nomadic lifestyle threatened US westward expansion. We watched a video where they presented both
sides with respect.
In the battlefield,
soldiers and Natives were buried where they fell. Stone markers stand at each grave. US soldiers have white stones and Natives
have brown stones. 
Here is a marker for
a Native man.
It was a sad place to be.
We knew it would be. We wanted to
honor the spirit of those who fell and to pray for peace for all people.
This we did.
Tonight we are at Columbus MT. Tomorrow we drive to Livingston MT, then head
south into Yellowstone Park. We’ll sleep
there tomorrow night. I don’t know if we
will have an electric hook-up for the next few days. Some places in the park will not allow our
phones – or our wifi hotspot – to work.
When I can blog again, I’ll catch you all up on that we do and see.
What an adventure this is!
The pictures tell a story, so nice. I like the part about your son. I bet he was a cutie. I would have missed the stone presidents, also. Much more interesting where you went. Keep on keeping on
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