Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Flying high...

Today was indeed a day of flying high - rubbing shoulders with US Presidents & American Indian Heroes and actually taking to the air in a helicopter.

Started the day in Deadwood, SD; I decided to take it easy and stay at the hotel. JH went on a sight-seeing trip in the town and had a great time with the Wild West ambience and its history.

First stop on our trip was Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The "Shrine of democracy" is an impressive monument. The carvings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln will hopefully continue inspire people five hundred years from now as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt mentioned in his speech at the dedication of the Memorial in 1936.

15 miles down the road is Crazy Horse Memorial - the Native Americans' answer to Mount Rushmore, originally conceived out of the Red Indian Chiefs' desire to "show the White man that Red man too has Heroes". Crazy Horse was played an important role in the victorious battle against the US Army led by Gen. George Custer. The monument is still under construction, and is very ambitious. When complete - with Crazy Horse depicted sitting on a horse - it is intended to dwarf the monument at Mount Rushmore. Right now, only the face of the warrior is complete. While we were there, there were two dynamite blasts as part of the construction, to clear the rock around the horse's eye area. Even the Mount Rushmore monument was built with the same technology using dynamite for blasting rock.

On the way to Crazy Horse, we noticed a sign for Black Hills Aerial Adventures touting introductory Helicopter rides for only $35. On the way back we stopped and took the aerial trip; the 5-6 minutes ride going close to the Crazy Horse monument, flying behind the monument and returning. The views of the highways along the lush green mountains with very few signs of civilization around was quite impressive!

A few miles out of Rapid City, SD is the touristic high-light of the desolate and barren landscape of along the South Dakota Highways. The place - Wall Drug - was started by a young couple in the early 1930s and the wife hit upon a brilliant idea to attract the numerous travelers in automobiles racing along the nearby highways without stopping at their store: To put signs along the highway that the travelers can get free ice water at Wall Drug! As the story goes, while the husband was putting up the first signs about the free ice water, travelers were already lining up at the store. From then onwards, it has grown to be more than a drug store and has become a full fledged touristic attraction with lot of stuff to do for people of every age. They even have a T Rex which roars every 12 minutes, and a couple of music bands who play very frequently.

Racing towards the Minneapolis and Chicago now, and stopped for the night at Chamberlain, SD - around 400 miles from Minneapolis. Long day's drive ahead tomorrow.

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