Out and about early today, anxious to be home! In spite of that I realize that it's unlikely that I'll be here again (please let that be true I am not in love with South Dakota) so I decide I'll see the sites. I started out at the Crazy Horse Memorial as it was the furthest west then I would work my way east. It sounds like a lovely thing and perhaps it will be when/if they ever finish. Entrance fee is a little steep ($10) for not much of anything. I was disappointed and would not recommend it. Traveling on: Mt. Rushmore is next, only 12 miles away! When I arrived I discovered that the only parking was in a concession parking garage ($10-$25), I was still feeling robbed by Crazy Horse and it irritated me that I had no choice but to pay that to see a National Monument! By definition owned by the American People, urgh. I passed it up, truth is it would look just like every photo I've ever seen of it (probably not as good in person! Photos by pros get attention.) Next stop a drive though Badlands National Park It was a beautiful drive and the badlands are very interesting--while pillars with grass on top! Like tables, some quite small and short, some very large. There are only a few places in the world that have these and it was cool. It is operated by the National Parks Service in cooperation with the Ogalla Sioux as it is partly reservation, party government and partly private. This would especially appeal to Lucas! From there it was south to Wounded Knee, SD, sight of a horrid massacre of Sioux people by US troops-many men, women and children were shot in the back while fleeing, none fought back. I have wanted to visit the site for many years so I drove through the reservation which is beautiful and green ranch and farm country. There isn't a marker (or I couldn't find one) at the actual site but there is a marker at a small church where the killed were buried in a mass grave. The marker has all the names on it, the date, etc. I didn't have the prickly's here I just felt an incredibly heavy air of sadness, more than usual in a cemetery.
From Wounded Knee I went further south into Nebraska. On my way to Valentine, NE (one of those places that post marks love notes every year with a special mark) I began driving through the sand hills. I really thought I had seen every kind of hill possible but not so, the sand hills are one more. The hills each resemble the pile a dump truck leaves behind and each "pile" is very close to but not touching another. Some are taller and some are on the sides of a lower more rounded hill. I don't imagine it would be possible to drive a tractor around these hills so it is ranch country. I see the roads to the ranch houses but rarely the houses themselves, more cows, some sheep. At Valentine I turn south again towards Interstate 80. This whole trip I have commented on how green everything is, I overhear everywhere that they've had so much more rain than usual. The broad expanse of a prairie without trees or houses to break it up is violently green, but then Nebraska is about to float away. Water stands everywhere, even on the highway (it has been there for a while as the Highway department has those portable digital signs posted to warn you, It is high enough that it would stop you if you didn't press hard on the gas.) There has been so much rain in Nebraska, severe storms of hail, microbursts and tornados, the fields of corn have water standing in the rows. My hotel in North Platte is next to the Platte River, Kelsey and I took a walk on their trail along it and looked at the high water. On the news they said it would crest in the night but wasn't expected to raise more than another three inches.
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