CRAZY HORSE

May 21, 2008 still in South Dakota for the second day. One day was not enough to visit spectacular areas ranging from Sioux Falls, National Grass Land, Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Black hills National Forest and Crazy Horse Memorial.

Crazy Horse was a name of a person who was Native American Indian born on Rapid Creek in the black Hills of South Dakota in about 1842 and killed by American solidiers september 6, 1877. He was defending the American Indians and their way of life. The reason for fighting between the native American and the American soldiers was because the treaty of 1868 was broken which was signed by the president of the united states.

The treaty stated as:
" As long as river run and grass grows and trees bear leaves paha sapa-the black hills of Dakota-will forever be the scared land of the Sioux Indians.

This is a quote by crazy horse " They made us many promises, more than I can remember-They never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it!

The sculupture of crazy horse is being carved out on a cliff in the Black Hills. It was started in 1949 and has not yet been done. It represents North American Indians of all tribes. When completed it is going to be the largest statue in the world. When we visit this sculupture I was impressed with the story behind.

Another amazing place we visited, was Mount Rushmore National Memorial. There is a sculpture of great American national leaders. This sculpture is on a rocky mountain. It shows only their faces. Their face is 60 ft high. The sculpter died before completing the sculupture. We can imagine how many years it took. It is the largest pieces of a sculpture ever created.

This sculpture is of four great leaders for their outstanding achivement. These leaders are Washington, representing the founding princples of of the new union; Jefferson, representing the declaration of independence and the Lousiana purchase from france. Lincoln, representing the preservation of the country during the civil war, and Roosvelt representing the expansion of the country throgh the implementation of the panama canal and the conservation of the united states natural resources.

Now, I am going to take you back to Badlands National Park. For the first time since we started travelling I saw facinating mountain in the park. It is the most breathtaking scenery, and estabilished as National Monument in 1939. Fortunately the weather was nice. We took advantage of it. We sat down and had lunch in the shade. I liked the colour and the shape of these mounains ranging from pink to yellow colours and, curved to domed shaped.

Many wildlife inhabitants were in the park including Coyotes, deer, Prairie dog, Bison and others. South Dakota is home to mountain Lions too. Unfortunately we haven't seen one.

Finally, I am going to say something about Black Hills National Forest. The area is 1.2 million acre. In this forest there are eleven reservoirs and thirty camp grounds.The name of the camping ground we spent was Ditch Creek. This camp ground is on flat topography by creek and on the bottom of the surrounding mountains covered with pine trees. It looks a typical mountanious area in Ethiopia with a similar landscape. The topography and the landscape is totally different from the rest of US I have seen for the last 9 days. All pine trees, steep slope and curvy roads and mountanious.

Hey guys we entered Wyoming heading to Yellow stone. Snow is falling. We may not camp tonight. We will see. Bye