OnTheRoad: Windcave National Park, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse

Tuesday started with a trip to the Wind Cave National Park. The cave lies underneath the prairies of western South Dakota and is one of the largest and well explored caves in the world. It is known for boxwork, a rare cave formation consisting of calcium. The Wind Cave is named for barometric winds at its entrance. The national park was opened in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt, as the seventh national park of the United States. Before we could go in, we had to wait for a while. We used the time for a little hike across the prairie.

Finally it was time to go underground. I have to admit, caves really scare me for various reasons. So it was a pretty big deal for me to go down. Well I think, when travelling with a group, you sometimes have to attend activities, you maybe don’t like doing that much. However it was quite the experience and despite all my worries, I found it really fascinating to see that hidden part of nature. Nevertheless I’ve been relieved, when we finally stepped into daylight again.

Boxwork.

As you can see we often had to stoop, so we didn't hit our heads at the ceiling. Also the paths were pretty narrow.

Steep stairs led down.

This is were we stood, when our guide told us more about the history of this cave and showed us, what it has been like, to explore the cave with a very little amount of light. Then she showed us, how things used to be, before the cave has been explored by people with lamps in their hands. So she turned the lights completely off for a few minutes. I can say that some of the 40 people on that tour, have been scared as hell...Haha. We survived ;)

In the afternoon we went to see the Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

Lets take a closer look at this piece of hard work that has been carved into the granite rock of Mount Rushmore from 1927-1941. The presidents head, carved into the mountain, have been selected because of what they symbolize. George Washington represents the struggle for independence, Thomas Jefferson the idea of government by the people. Abraham Lincoln stands for his ideas on equality and the permanent union of the states, and Theodore Roosevelt stands for the 20th century role of the United States in world affairs. You can visit the website of the Mount Rushmore Memorial for more information.

After walking around in the heat for some time and looking at the Mount Rushmore Memorial from different angles, we headed to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It consists of the Indian Museum of North America, the Native American Educational and Cultural Center and the Crazy Horse Monument, a huge sculpture which is still being carved out of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The memorial stands for all Native American tribes.

The monument represents Crazy Horse, who was a Native American warrior of the Oglala Lakota. He fought several wars against the U.S. Federal Government to stop it from trespassing the territory of the Lakota people. During his last war, he was fatally wounded by a military guard in 1877.

The building process started in 1948 and is still ongoing. It is a rather slow process, due to Henry Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota chief, who decided to not rely on government funds, but instead wanted the memorial to be financed privately through influential Americans interested in the welfare of the American Indian. He recruited and assigned Polish-American Korczak Ziolkowski to build the monument. The whole project became a family affair. Ziolkowski died in 1982. Since then his widow and seven of their children took over on the building process.