Schedule update: Ill be in Boulder until Tuesday morning at which point Ill be leaving to drive through New Mexico, Arizona, and into California to get through San Diego to see Ash and up to LA by Friday.
Mount Rushmore was interesting, and worth seeing, but not worth a trip to South Dakota on it's own... I spent some time, took some pictures, and oddly enough met a couple that were from upstate NY!
We chatted for a while about our travels and they suggested that I check out Crazy Horse, I didnt really know what it was but when I checked it out on the map it was on my way to Colorado so I decided i would stop. I believe it was also at this point that I broke my tripod AND realized that my camera's sensor had a lot of dust on it and had to be cleaned...(side note- thank god for a great camera store in boulder, I was able to get the camera cleaned and pick up a new tripod for the rest of the trip- but as a result, I havent gotten many pictures these past two days)
This particular goat had some sort of tracking device attached to his neck- but he didnt seem to mind, he almost looks like he is smiling, right?
Without a doubt- the Black Hills in South Dakota are the most eerie location I have traveled through as of yet. You can almost sense the spirit of the Native American culture that lived in these hills hundreds of years ago... I loved my time driving through and stopped a few times for some landscape shots.
And from here, about 30 minutes down the road, I arrived at the Crazy Horse Monument. So, in case you dont know, Crazy Horse is a similar monument to Mount Rushmore, but at about 100 times the size. It has been under production for over 50 years and the original sculptor has passed away leaving his wife and children in charge to supervise the project. The native americans that started the project will not accept government funding so the only money that funds the project is money collected from people like me who pass by to see it, pay the 10 dollar entry fee, and hopefully by some goods in the museum or make a donation, but at the rate it is going, it will be another 50 years before it is done. It would be cool to see it completed during my lifetime, but there is a LOT to get done.
If you look towards the bottom of the monument on the left in my picture, you can see a long yellow line... that is a tractor trailer, to give you an idea of the scale of this. And the white chalk line on the front is a rough sketch of the horses head that will eventually be part of the monument. You can fit the entire mount rushmore monument on the nose of this face alone... and that entire hill needs to be carved out still.
The crazy horse museum had tons of fun, interesting, native american items along with authentic wild west stuff like guns, clothing, pictures, etc- this is a replica of a nice gun that would have been carried by an old fashioned cowboy, dont know why but I really enjoyed being in this museum practically all alone and spending some time trying to get myself to imagine what it must have been like to have been out here before cars on horseback living the life of a cowboy. (btw, at this point I can safely say that the black hills, rushmore, AND crazy horse make it a bit more understanding if one were to want to plan a trip out here without just passing through, but still, I think you could see all there is to see at both places in one day.)
Then it was back on the road to head to colorado- which was only about 6 hours from these two monuments.
Not a lot to see out here. It was this road for about 100 miles, no cell service, hardly any other cars- just a lot of driveways to ranches- it would say the ranches name, and then how far from the road it was until you got there, usually between 5-10 miles off the main road.
They had some interesting ranch names...
Hello Wyoming!
Does anyone know what the deal is with the red roads? I would be driving, and out of nowhere the roads would turn red- they were much softer and nicer to drive on but I dont understand what the logic is- maybe it is a local material- seemed to be that wherever they were doing road work in wyoming they were putting in this new red road material.
I stopped to take this one... the sky is so big out here!
And then a few miles up the road I saw a HUGE freight train coming my way so I quickly pulled over and grabbed my big lens to grab a few shots of it passing by. Ive loved trains since I was a kid (since my dad worked on the railroad) so I still love the idea of freight trains traveling at great lengths across the country- and Union Pacific has nice looking engines.
Another interesting landscape.
It said chugwater, and I was thirsty, so i did. If you notice in the background of this picture, you will see what appears to be a big wooden fence.. well these things are lining the roads all through wyoming and into colorado- apparently they are to prevent snow drifts from entering the roads. I sometimes forget that I am traveling in the spring and if it were the dead of winter, this might not be the safest place to by in my non 4wd volkswagon.
So once I arrived in Boulder, I spent some time catching up with my old friends the DeBerghs (Marcus, Eric, and Jaime) and since then have just been relaxing, spending time outside, and enjoying myself. Below are a few pictures from being here thus far but since I havent had my camera until this afternoon, I dont have many. More can be seen on facebook since i upload to there directly from my phone.
me, playing frisbee with some of Jaimes friends and their dog on University of Colorado at Boulder's Campus (which was a really nice campus i might add)
These next two pics are of this random kid who was dancing his way through the quad while listening to headphones- he just skipped and danced all around and even started dancing with strangers- he provided a handful of laughs for the hundreds of people that were out there that day.
Jaime hurt her knee so she took a little breather from frisbee to ice it.
Jaime's friend Ben put an 80cc engine on his mountain bike- it's pretty cool.
These last few pics are at a Mets vs Rockies game that Jamie, Ben, Ben's friend Eric, and I went to in Denver. It was a blast. Jaime let me borrow her blue shades so I could represent the mets. Turns out people enjoyed them so much on me that she gave them to me! Ha (i can hear my mom now "what the hell are those? They dont look good at all, you look like a fool!")
Well, tomorrow I am heading up to Breckenridge and then to Vail for some snowboarding (my first time out west) and some music festivals at night with some good reggae. I'm really looking forward to it, but Eric wants to hit the road by 630 so I think it's about time I get to bed.
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