With all these visits, you would think I would have hundreds of images, but alas I have only a few images from these visits and most are on Kodachrome or prints.  I have scanned all that I can find and will keep looking for more through my thousands of mostly cataloged slides and negatives. I am hopeful to someday go back and add to my gallery.

Buffalo, Donkeys and prairie dogs were always in abundance on our stops. The donkeys would come right to the car and stick their heads in, looking for a handout. They were generally gentle and would allow a petting of their snout as long as a snack accompanied. The buffalo would crowd the roads and you would have to tread gently. I never saw them aggressive, but I also didn’t push my luck with them. A distant viewing was usually best. The same with the prairie dogs who were skittish and would pop back in their hole with a cry to warn the others in their community. The greatest danger with them are rabies.

           

     

Two great monuments, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial. The famous Mount Rushmore, with the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln has long since been a monument to the strength of the U.S. and it’s leaders. Carve out of the granite in the Black Hills, this Cultural Icon took 14 years to sculpt and 400 workers. Representing the nation’s birth, growth, development and preservation it does not come without controversy. American Indians hold claim to the lands of the Black Hills. The growth of America came at the expense of the Indian as thousands, if not millions died protecting their land and way of life. To build a monument in the heart of their ancestral lands celebrating their loss is considered by many as beyond disrespectful. The monument to Crazy Horse, one of the great warriors of the Oglala Lakota tribe was started in 1948 to represent the American Indian in their sacred lands. This huge monument is far from finished and continues construction privately by the family of the original sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. It also is not without controversy as many in the Lakota tribe were not advised of the monument when Henry Standing Bear, an elder for the tribe, commissioned Korczak to start work, basically destroying a sacred mountain for the monument.

                 

Deadwood is famous for it’s wild west standing, when gold miners flooded the hills from 1874. Deadwood was founded in 1876 in a gulch of dead trees and a creek full of gold. Wild Bill Hickok was a famous gunslinger and was shot dead while playing poker, Calamity Jane is buried in the Mount Moriah Cemetery next to Hickok. A TV show was dedicated to the early exploits of the town. Today it is a tourist magnate, filled with casinos and souvenir shops, full service spas and hotels.

                                     

While all these man-made attractions are fun and interesting, the real South Dakota is found in it’s natural beauty. The Black Hills, Needle Highway and Badlands are amazing. These are the places I will return to, and search for more. Needle Highway is a 14 mile thread of a road built in 1922 through a course of forests and granite needlelike rock formations. Not RV friendly, there are narrow passes such as Needles Eye where we these larger vehicles have been known to get stuck. The highway is part of a longer Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway,  one of many incredible drives in and around Custer State Park.

               

                

Bruce Springsteen sang about the Badlands, though I don’t know if it was specifically about THESE Badlands. There was a TV show and movies made in this amazing park. The Badlands require several days to really capture since everyday and every hour provides a different light and emotion. A National Park since 1977, it is a extinct sea and has left behind colors and formations which could be from another planet. The terrain was shaped by water, formed 75 million years ago when the shallow sea started to recede. The Oglala Lakota Indians named it mako sica which translates directly to land bad. Fossils are still found as the Badlands continue to be reshaped through erosion.

         

         

         

South Dakota will remain a big part of my childhood and adult life. I only hope to spend more time exploring it’s beauty. A fuller gallery appears below.