The morning of Wednesday, August 5th, found us driving again. This time we left Casper, Wyoming pointed toward Custer, South Dakota. We left Casper and followed I-25 to Hwy. 20 east at Orin. We would stay with this road until we found Hwy 385 headed north at about Chadron. This would take us to the Crazy Horse Memorial. I found it interesting that the highway was sometimes a brick red in color. We also pass Old Woman Creek. I think I felt a kinship to that place. Wonder why??? We would drive through the Black Hills National Forest. This drive was also beautiful. Here are some pictures of the drive from Casper, Wyoming to the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota.
This was the longest train ever!! It went on forever and ever. I thought it was parked and we were driving past it. It wasn't until the very end that I realized it was driving the same direction we were. It had two engines at the back pushing and two engines at the front pulling. Very long train.
This is an example of the brick red surface on the highway. It is actually very pretty in this western setting.
Sometimes the road just goes on and on and on and on...
This is a sawmill. Patty Stephens told me the day before that the Fisch family had a sawmill on their property years ago. It may have been something like this one.
This is the little town of Custer, South Dakota.
We made it to our first tourist attraction of the day, Crazy Horse Memorial. This is a privately owned monument. Korczak Ziolkowski was a sculptor who helped to carve Mt. Rushmore. Chief Henry Standing Bear asked him to make a monument to the brave men of the Native American nations. They wanted Crazy Horse to be the object in the sculpture and they had a mountain picked out. Ziolkowski agreed to do that. He moved there, married, raised a family of lots of children who continue his work to this day. The end plan is not only the monument but the continuing University and eventually a medical center. Ziolkowski has actually turned down millions in federal money as he doesn't feel the government will follow through with the mission first envisioned.
Back to our car for the 17 mile drive to Mt. Rushmore.
Mt. Rushmore was a refreshing quick stop. Claude and I had both seen Mt. Rushmore before at different times. I saw it as a young person with my family. Claude saw it when he drove home from Utah one time. We both enjoyed being there again. They added the avenue with flags from all the states in the United States. The one for Kentucky was wrapped around the cord because of all the wind. We took a prize winning selfie. And we ended our visit with an amazing lemonade. They make a fresh squeezed lemonade. Then they put a plot of wojapi on top. You mix that in to your lemonade. It was really, really good. Very refreshing.
Now on to our final tourist destination of the day. We pointed the hermetically sealed Buick Envision toward Wall, South Dakota to visit the famous Wall Drug. We shared the road with a ton of motorcyclists headed to Sturgis. We would avoid Sturgis.
As a child, one of the things we enjoyed on these long road trips were the Burma Shave signs. Here is a sample.
Wall Drug does a similar method of advertising. Here are a few we saw before we got to Wall, South Dakota.
This was the final sign for Wall Drug. Time to enter the city and find the parking.
Parking is free and we pulled into a space on the main street. Wall Drug was started when Ted Hustead bought the only drug store in Wall, South Dakota outside the Badlands. The stream of customers was non-existent. He and his wife, Dorothy, persevered and then had an idea that the tourist driving across the stretch of land would be really thirsty. They made signs using the Burma Shave idea and posted them as you drive across this dry land into Wall. These signs said, "Free Water". This was their ticket to success. People came for the free water and purchased other things and it just grew from there. Clever people those Hustead's.
We shopped a little inside and then went to another building behind this main one. Now we can say we saw this place. Check that one off the bucket list.
We decided we would try to get a little further down the road before finding a hotel for the night. As we drove we saw more interesting things that farmers do to entertain you as you drive. We also passed fields of sunflowers. Their heads all pointing the same direction. Simply beautiful.
We passed into the Central Time Zone and landed in Oacoma, South Dakota and found a Quality Inn to sleep in that night.
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