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Alla inlägg den 15 juli 2020

Av EvaLena Hallgren - 15 juli 2020 16:04


Yesterday .................early morning as usual and this fella was having his breakfast munching away on the green grass

 



first stop today was Devils Tower It is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle Fourche River. It rises 1,267 feet (386 m) above the Belle Fourche River, standing 867 feet (265 m) from the summit to base. The summit is 5,112 feet (1,559 m) above sea level.


 


 



 


Devils Tower was the first United States national monument, established on September 24, 1906, by President Theodore Roosevelt The monument's boundary encloses an area of 1,347 acres (545 ha).
The Tower is sacred to several Plains tribes, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Kiowa. Because of this, many Native American leaders objected to climbers ascending the monument, considering this to be a desecration. The climbers argued that they had a right to climb the Tower since it is on federal land. A compromise was eventually reached with a voluntary climbing ban during the month of June when the tribes are conducting ceremonies around the monument.

There are many great legends regarding the tower and the unusual looking columns that bear a striking resemblance to claw marks. It’s no surprise that both the stories, from the Lakota Sioux and the Kiowa, involve a similar narrative. In the Lakota Sioux legend, six girls were out picking flowers when they were attacked and chased by bears. The Great Spirit felt bad for them and raised the ground beneath their feet. The bears gave chase and attempted to climb the newly formed tower, but they couldn’t get to the top. The bears fell off, clawing the sides of the monolith.




     

Deer gracing here too

   

Continuing Northwest we were driving the Warrior Trail Highway 212 and it's miles and miles of hills and tall grass. We are on a prairie and can't help thinking of the Pioneers and their wagons, how they must have struggled

   


We are comfortable but it's nothing but grassy hills as far as we can see. Mom is getting sleepy and needed to stop for a minute and we found a store that supposedly was located on Custer's last camp. The owner was friendly and had many stories to tell. Mom got ice for our bucket and then we went for a walk.


 

the ATM machine looks out of place here


   

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.


   


there was no dogs allowed here either? It is sacred ground ................sooo god doesn't like dogs huh?


The fight was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho, who were led by several major war leaders, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, and had been inspired by the visions of Sitting Bull. The U.S 7th Cavalry, a force of 700 men, suffered a major defeat while under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Five of the 7th Cavalry's twelve companies were annihilated and Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law. The total U.S casualty count included 268 dead and 55 severely wounded (six died later from their wounds)

   

we continue west and an occasional bar pops up in the middle of nowhere.................

     


there were millions....no billions of grasshoppers here......................

   


more saloons

   


we are now in a town named Billing, and Mom can't decide what way to go?  we can make the loop north to Missoula and then loop back to Yellowstone, or ???

I don't get involved in the navigation Mom will go wherever she thinks there's something interesting to see, and I'm fine with that. That's why I'm the best travel companion Mom says



   


  Getting ready to continue our adventure...............see ya in the morning

  sloppy kisses for ya'll



Av EvaLena Hallgren - 15 juli 2020 04:21

We got up really early so we could beat the crowds at Mt.Rushmore, but forgetful Mom didn't charge the batteries to her camera overnight like she planned. We did get to the mountain around 9AM and found out the "No Pets" policy again. Stupid stuff but it didn't matter because we had a great view of the faces anyway.


Keystone was a town to stop at on the way, but we are too early for anything to be open but it didn't matter since it was mostly some touristy stuff except this chainsaw carvers work, which is quite impressive we thought.
Mom wanted "real" breakfast bacon and eggs but all she could find was sweets and vine which could have been ok at a different time.

     


Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a massive sculpture carved into the Black Hills region of South Dakota. Completed in 1941 under the direction of Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln, the sculpture's roughly 60-ft.-high granite faces depict U.S presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln



The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe is calling for the removal of  the faces arguing that it is carved in an area that is considered sacred land to Natives.

"Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise of the treaty then the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore,
"The United States of America wishes for all of us to be citizens and a family of their republic yet when they get bored of looking at those faces we are left looking at our molesters," said chairman Frazier.
 
I'm glad we got to see it before that happens
 
 

A lifesize portrait of the Polish American carver Korczak Ziolkowski


Leaving the monument we drove along a very nice and fun road, we stopped to look at the profile of one of the presidents.




At the Crazy Horse park, they didn't have any issues with a dog, so I was happy to go for a long walk and getting so much attention from so many people................I think I'm a star


The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization.


 

This is a model on how it's supposed to look when it's done, it'll be huge.


Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people. His most famous actions against the U.S military included the Fetterman Fight (21 December 1866) and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25–26 June 1876). He surrendered to U.S troops under General Crook in May 1877 and was fatally wounded by a military guard, allegedly while resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members and was honored by the U.S Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ postage stamp that is part of its Great Americans series.
Crazy Horse resisted being photographed and was deliberately buried where his grave would not be found. Ziolkowski envisioned the monument as a metaphoric tribute to the spirit of Crazy Horse and Native Americans. He reportedly said, "My lands are where my dead lie buried." His extended hand on the monument is to symbolize that statement.



there's a lot of controversies about this carving too,..............


The memorial master plan includes the mountain carving monument, an Indian Museum of North America, and a Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles (27 km) from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet (195 m) long and 563 feet (172 m) high. The arm of Crazy Horse will be 263 feet (80 m) long and the head 87 feet (27 m) high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet (18 m) high.

The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion. If completed as designed, it will become the world's second tallest statue, after the Statue of Unity.

Henry Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota chief, and well-known statesman and elder in the Native American community, recruited and commissioned Polish-American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to build the Crazy Horse Memorial. In October 1931, Luther Standing Bear, Henry's older brother, wrote to sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who was carving the heads of four American presidents at Mount Rushmore. Luther suggested that it would be "most fitting to have the face of Crazy Horse sculpted there. Crazy Horse is the real patriot of the Sioux tribe and the only one worthy to place by the side of Washington and Lincoln." Borglum never replied. Thereafter, Henry Standing Bear began a campaign to have Borglum carve an image of Crazy Horse on Mt. Rushmore. In summer of 1935, Standing Bear, frustrated over the stalled Crazy Horse project, wrote to James H. Cook, a long time friend of Chief Red Cloud's, "I am struggling hopelessly with this because I am without funds, no employment and no assistance from any Indian or White.

On November 7, 1939, Henry Standing Bear wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, who worked on Mount Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum. He informed the sculptor, "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too. Standing Bear also wrote a letter to Undersecretary Oscar Chapman of the Department of the Interior, offering all his own fertile 900 acres (365 ha) in exchange for the barren mountain for the purpose of paying honor to Crazy Horse. The government responded positively, and the U.S Forest Service, responsible for the land, agreed to grant a permit for the use of the land, with a commission to oversee the project. Standing Bear chose not to seek government funds and relied instead upon influential Americans interested in the welfare of the American Indian to privately fund the project.

In the spring of 1940, Ziolkowski spent three weeks with Standing Bear at Pine Ridge, discussing land ownership issues and learning about Crazy Horse and the Lakota way of life. According to Ziolkowski, "Standing Bear grew very angry when he spoke of the broken Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868). That was the one I'd read about in which the President promised the Black Hills would belong to the Indians forever. I remember how his old eyes flashed out of that dark mahogany face, then he would shake his head and fall silent for a long while.


Elaine Quiver, a descendant of one of Crazy Horse's aunts, said in 2003 that the elder Standing Bear should not have independently petitioned Ziolkowski to create the memorial, because Lakota culture dictates consensus from family members for such a decision, which was not obtained before the first rock was dynamited in 1948

She said:

They don't respect our culture because we didn't give permission for someone to carve the sacred Black Hills where our burial grounds are. They were there for us to enjoy and they were there for us to pray. But it wasn't meant to be carved into images, which is very wrong for all of us. The more I think about it, the more it's a desecration of our Indian culture. Not just Crazy Horse, but all of us.



 



After these two attractions it was time to drive a scenic loop .........narrow without guardrails, I could hear my Moms heart beating of fear and her hands was all sweaty despite AC.
Too bad there weren't enough places to pull over to take pictures, so many of them are taken while driving and the glare from the window shows...........My question to Mom is: how scared can you be when you drive with one hand while taking pictures with the other?


           



we squeezed through several tight spots where only one car at the time fit, good thing no-one was in a hurry

   



this was called the eye of the needle, pretty cool to drive through, 

 


Views are absolutely spectacular but Mom is scared of heights and can't drive too close to the edges so it was difficult to pull over to the side. She says she feels dizzy looking over the edge...The high altitude may also have something to do with it?

 

Black Elk Peak, which rises to 7,244 feet, is the range's highest summit.(2 200m)


we stopped in a town named Custer and had lunch. another typical town for tourists selling Tshirts and the usual trinkets. We didn't stay long and we soon continued west to next goal. We made it just over the border to Wyoming.

 


Bars do not want gunslingers in their establishment.............wonder why ?

 


Lots of painted bulls in this town too

 


Yesterday I didn't have very good wi fi so I'm a day behind in my story................we are very close to Yellowstone now............but I'll tell you more about that tomorrow morning because I'm sleepy from driving so far today..................HA says Mom: you, can't be tired from napping in the back most of the time.. She's considering teaching me how to drive so I can take over when she gets so sleepy.


Good Night kisses Ya'll..............



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