DAY 44: "A Day Of Faces....."

DAY 44:  Custer, South Dakota - August 13, 2010 (AGH....it's Friday the 13th!)

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like everyone is "staring" at you??  Well, today was one of those days for me........everywhere we went, really big heads were staring at me....

I was super excited to get today started......I knew we would see lots of beautiful, famous sites that I've only read about; learn new and interesting facts and information about each of these.....see beautiful scenery on the way to these historical monuments.....but FIRST.......you've got to get there.

After mapping the whole day out, we hopped on the trike and off we went.  I don't know where I initially went wrong, but I've got it narrowed down to the first 5 minutes.  The roads were not as they were on the map.......let's just leave it at that.

First stop; Crazy Horse Monument.  WOW!  I have to admit, I didn't know too much about the story of this monument-in-progress, but what an interesting story.  In a nutshell; there is a bit of controversy over exactly when this Indian dude named "Crazy Horse" was born, but thats not important.  His nickname was "Curly" and his younger brother was "High Horse" (I'm not making this stuff up...).  "Crazy Horse" was known for his "trance visions", so his father took him on a vision quest.  They sat between two humps at the top of a hill (I think that's where our RV is parked) and his vision took him to the South.  Things happened.....time went by......he had a lightning bolt down the right side of his face and three red hailstones on his forehead.  I don't know why.  His visions gave him great power so he couldn't get hurt until he was killed.  I know, I know....that didn't make any sense.....One last thing; there were women problems.......

View of Crazy Horse from Parking Lot

"Crazy Horse" invited "Black Buffalo Woman"  (don't blame me; that was her name!) to accompany him on a buffalo hunt. Unfortunately, she was the wife of a dude named "No Water" who had a reputation of drinking too much (and I don't think it was "water" he was drinking).  "No Water" tracked down "Crazy Horse" and "Black Buffalo Woman" and found them in a tipi together. "No Water" stuck a pistol in the tipi and fired hitting "Crazy Horse" in the jaw.  "No Water" left, with "Crazy Horse's" relatives in hot pursuit.  "No Water" ran his horse until it died and kept running.   The elders sent a lady named "Black Shawl Woman" to heal "Crazy Horse's" jaw, so he married both "Black Buffalo Woman", i.e. BBW" and "Black Shawl Woman, i.e. BSW".  BSW gave birth to his only child, a daughter named "They Are Afraid of Her".  Oh ya, he also married a lady named "Chi-Chi" which means "Brown Eyed Woman" or as the Indians called her, "Crazy Anglo Woman"....ok..I made that last part up.

Chuck's face when he thought he had to walk up the Mtn.

Now, on to the Monument.....A dude by the name of Korczak (let's just call him Kojak for short) was a sculpture who, with his family, has been working on this since 1948.  While working on the project, he married and had ten children who have all helped him in seeing this project completed.  Kojak has since died, but his family is keeping up the project....and its a HUGE project.  If and when the monument is completed, it will be the worlds largest sculpture.  It really is an extraordinary story......

Whew......didn't mean for that to be so long.......I'll hurry....we then went and found Mt. Rushmore which was fantastic!  We did notice, however, that they have recently "quietly" added a 5th face to the monument......I didn't even hear about this on Fox News!