Crazy about South DakotaJul 18, 2012
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In the RV parking lot of Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota
Wall Drug began as a drug store in 1931 offering tourists "ice...
Giant postcard...wonder what the postage would be on this one?
| This edition of our trip journal finds us in the town of Rock Springs, Wyoming, which is close to the eastern edge of Utah and northwestern border of Colorado. After we left Pierre we traveled along Highway 34/14 through some beautiful farmland and along the way we stopped at the ultimate tourist town, Wall, South Dakota. If you have ever traversed the state before you must have seen all the billboards touting Wall Drug. They publicize that they have over 500 miles of signs alone on Interstate 80 between Minnesota and Billings, Montana! Wall Drug is a combination of restaurants, tourist/gift shop and an actual drug store, all under one roof. It is a sprawling tourist attraction of international renown that according to the New York Times “draws some 2 million annual visitors and takes in over $10 million a year.” Recently they added the “Wall Backyard” complete with spouting water fountains to run through and cool off, a dinosaur that eats every 12 minutes and a variety of photo opportunities to take silly pictures; stand in front of that mythical creature, the jackalope or pretend you are riding a bucking bronco….it’s all part of they fun! From there we settled into our next stop, Custer in the heart of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The town had a lot of fun shops and a great wine tasting room, The Naked Winery. Our main reason for stopping there was to visit The Crazy Horse Memorial just outside of Custer. Dennis had been there in the early 1980’s and remembered seeing just a bit of the carving, mainly his nose and the ledge that will become his pointing arm. Although the progress is quite slow on this project, it is an amazing example of engineering and determination. The story is that Lakota Chief Standing Bear approached Korczak Ziolkowski after seeing his work in the 1939 World’s Fair. He invited him to travel to the Black Hills and carve Crazy Horse. Korczak arrived there in 1947 and began work, by himself, in 1948 at the age of 40. He firmly believed that the Crazy Horse sculpture should be built by the public not the taxpayer, so he had, over the years, turned down offers of federal funding. Before he died in 1982 he left detailed plans and scale models of the project so that others could continue on with his dream. Since then, his wife, Ruth, and 7 of their 10 children have worked in concert with the Crazy Horse Foundation to continue on with his work. No matter what your thoughts are regarding Native American Indians and our government, it is a sight worth seeing. Our next stop was a one-night stay but we definitely want to return to Casper, Wyoming in the near future. We met the nicest couple from Oregon there, he was 85 and his “friend” was 86. They both wanted to travel but neither could accomplish it on their own so they are seeing the western US and visiting family in a 27 foot Class C rig. We had them over in our RV and chatted about their lives, family and traveling…neat folks! We also had a fabulous meal at the Wyoming Burger Company; you could choose beef, elk, bison or chicken on a “build it yourself” burger. The food was scrumptious but even better was the view on the patio. We enjoyed our meal all the while viewing the Platte River rapids. It was made even more enjoyable as we watched people rafting down the river on boogie boards, floaties, kayaks and tubes. It looked extremely inviting but we didn’t have our bathing suits with us ☹ We are spending a couple of days in Rock Springs, Wyoming and we hope to visit a few sights in the area….all in the next journal! |
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