8-21-13 - Update

Hello friends it is time for another update.   I can tell you that I am enjoying the weather in Wyoming.  I spoke to my mom yesterday and she told me that it was 109 on Monday.  I looked at the current temperature and it is 70 degrees here now.  NICE!!!!

As I mentioned in my last post, Jon and I are volunteering at Curt Gowdy State Park.  We love it here.  The park employees are great to work with and we have enjoyed meeting other volunteers.  Curt Gowdy was a famous sportscaster from this area and the Park was named for him in 1972.  The park has a couple of reservoirs with good fishing.  But it is mostly known for it's mountain bike trails.  It is also becoming a popular destination for bouldering.

A Visitor Center is in the final stages of construction and I am hopeful that it will be open before Jon and I move on.  

We took a motorcycle ride last Saturday.  Here are some pictures.

The ride was great.  We left the park, went through Laramie and over the Snowy Range.  The highest mountain peak was just over 12000 feet.   

We have not done much traveling the last couple of weeks.  We are hoping to get in a couple of good rides in this weekend.  

8-05-13 - Update

Hello All!

I am very late in posting my weekly blog.  SORRY!!!!

We are now at Curt Gowdy State Park in Wyoming (near Cheyenne) and we do not have cell service or internet.  We have to drive about 14 miles into town to get service.  Also, Jon and I are volunteering until the end of September so until we leave this area - I am only going to blog every other week.

We had a great time in the Rapid City area.  Downtown Rapid is one of the nicest downtowns that I have been in.  Rapid City is the closest city to Mount Rushmore and one of its unofficial nicknames is the "City of Presidents."  On almost every corner in the old downtown area is a statue of one of the our previous presidents.

Jon and I had dinner and drinks at the Firehouse Brewery in Downtown Rapid.  Service was great and the place was packed.  Jon enjoyed the beer that he choose, mine was just OK.  The food was not great.  But the building and the furnishings were fantastic.

Here are some photos of Downtown Rapid City.

Last week, we also spent one afternoon at Mount Rushmore.  I was surprised that it was smaller than I had imaged.

Mount Rushmore doesn't have an admission fee, although you do have to pay to park.  They have a museum, amphitheatre, visitor center and an avenue of all the state flags.  It was very interesting to see and I enjoyed the museum.  They have two small movie theaters inside and they show a short film about the sculptor, (Gutzon Borglum), and how the mountain was transformed into the faces of these four presidents. From left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abe Lincoln.  It also talked about how this enormous undertaking started and why these four presidents were chosen.

The idea of Mount Rushmore started as an idea to attract visitors to the Black Hills.  Borglum chose Mount Rushmore as the site for the shrine.  The following text is from a brochure that I picked up on our visit: "Gutzon Borglum's vision for Mount Rushmore was no less than the formal rendering of the philosophy of our government into granite on a mountain peak.

George Washington was our first president, so he represents the birth of our nation.   Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, so he represents the expansion of our nation.  Teddy Roosevelt is credited with the Panama Canal, Trust Busting (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) and finally the National Park Systems, so he represents the development of our nation.  And finally, Abe Lincoln, who was successful in saving the union during the civil war, so he represents the preservation of our nation.

Mount Rushmore has certainly done what it was intended to do, as tourism is the major source of economy in the area.

Custer State Park is very near Mount Rushmore and Jon and I took two day rides through the park and surrounding towns.

We also visited the Crazy Horse.   If you haven't heard of this, I am very happy to be the first to tell you about it.  It is another mountain being sculpted into a memorial.  But that is where the similarities end.

Crazy Horse Memorial was inspired by Mount Rushmore, and in 1929, Henry Standing Bear (a Lakota Elder) contacted the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski.  Standing Bear told Korczak that he and the other chiefs would like the "white man to know that the red man has great heros too."

Korczak took on this project and stated that he was proud that this memorial will be his life's work.  They started the project in 1948 and it is still far from completion.  The entire project is being completed with private donations and by charging a very nominal admission fee as well as gift shop revenue.  

When completed, this sculpture will be the largest in the world.  Korczak died in 1982, however his wife Ruth and seven of their ten children still work on the memorial.  Korczak wrote a letter to his children in 1952, and his wife gave the letter to his children after he died.  The letter said that his children did not have to stay and continue the project if they didn't want to, but if they did decide to stay on, then he wanted them to stay for life.  One of Korczak and Ruth's daughter is a sculptor and has made a couple of modifications to her fathers original plans.  Ruth said that all of the children that stayed play an important role in the project. They all have individual talents that are crucial to the success of this extreme undertaking.

I am so impressed with this project and the dedication of the Ziolkowski family.  I can not say enough about them.  I could probably write a couple more blogs just on this subject.  If you are ever in the Black Hills, this is a must see.  We enjoyed our time here very much.  We are on to another adventure, but what I saw here will be with me forever.