The Wonderful Park called Custer, South Dakota

It is about a 6 hour drive from Medora, ND down to Custer, SD. When you leave Rapid City, it’s a curvy and slow drive.  I started trying about 2 months prior to get us reservations at Custer State Park.  I was only able to score 2 nights but I knew we needed at least 4 nights so we could see and experience all the sounds that make this a very special area.  The day we arrived was also the day of the Buffalo Roundup in the park so it was even hard to find any openings in a private park.  Our first 2 nights we camped at Buffalo Ridge which is a nice park.  We had fun neighbors and enjoyed sharing a campfire and happy hour with them.

 First on our agenda here was to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial.  Here’s a little history for you.  Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (1908 – 1982) was born in Boston. He was a self-taught and renowned Sculptor, gaining recognition at the 1939 World’s Fair which attracted the attention of Chief Henry Standing Bear who invited Korczak to the Black Hills to carve Crazy Horse.  The Native Americans chose the Lakota Leader, Crazy Horse, as the subject for this project.  Korczak accepted. Ruth Ross (1926 – 2014) followed him, they married and had ten children who took part in the Dream of Crazy Horse as they were growing up.  Dedicated management and staff, including the Ziolkowski children and grand children, carry on the project today. Their mission is to protect and preserve the culture, tradition, and living heritage of all North American Indians. There is a Mountain Crew that works year-round. They are still in the phase of carving and removing most rock by labor intensive drilling, feather and wedging, and wire saw cuts.

Crazy Horse is still in progress!

The white lines indicate where they will be carving at.  You can kinda make out his horse.

One day it will look like this.

The model and the mountain.

Another carving

From there we drove down to Jewel Cave National Monument.  President Teddy Roosevelt on February 7, 1908 signed a proclamation to establish this monument as part of the National Park system. At the time it was believed to be a small but extraordinarily beautiful cave.  One hundred years later exploration continues and has proven Jewel Cave to be anything but small, with a current length of 180 miles.  And yes, due to Covid, there were no cave tours and they were showing their introductory movie that was nicely done and allowed us to interpret the park a little.

Thank you Teddy Roosevelt!

The next day we moved to the Legion Lake Campground at the state park.  It is sunny, cold and windy!  Ron set up the BBQ pit for a little grilling.  There are 3 or 4 scenic drives to do in the park.  We drove the Needles Highway which gets it’s name from the needle-like formations along the highway. Fall foliage was very pretty.  We also drove the Wildlife Loop.  It seemed all the bison were still pinned up from the Buffalo Roundup the day before.

Love the tunnels

Beautiful moonrise over Legion Lake

The next day we made the drive up to Mount Rushmore on the winding Iron Mountain Road.  There are beautiful pigtail bridges, outstanding scenery and tunnels that frame Mount Rushmore.

View through the tunnel

We sure love our country!

We ended our stay here with a happy hour with blogging friends Jim and Barb.  I have been following their travels since we started our full time adventures back in 2016.  They recently purchased property near Custer and are in the process of building a barndominium.  It was great to meet them in person at long last!

Thanks Jim, Barb, Daisy and Dakota for letting us come visit! You have a beautiful homeplace!

Next up is the Badlands and Minuteman Missile Park in South Dakota.