Crazy Horse Mountain

I awoke this morning to the sound of one of those enormously long freight trains passing through Downtown Brighton, just north east of Denver where we flew in last night. I say last night but by the time we had flown further north across the Great Lakes, to avoid bad weather, it was 11pm when we landed, in actuality 1am. We took the shuttle bus to the hire car company to discover a glitch with the online booking back home meant we couldn’t have the car and stood to lose £400! Phone calls to the US and UK branches ensued, tempers frayed, short story we got a car and arrived at the Hampton Inn to a much needed warm welcome some time after 2am (4am body clock time). The bed was so large I think it had its own time zone from one side to the other! I took a peek out of the window and could just see the Rocky Mountains lit by the morning sun, way over the western side of Denver.

After picking up coffees we headed north, a long drive for Rob, thank you Rob! We passed through amazing countryside, basically prairie from horizon to horizon. En route we spotted prairie dogs and tumbleweed, deer and eagles. The landscape and terrain changed hourly from flatland to rounded hills reminiscent of the Dales to forested slopes and valleys. We had a rest stop at the Chugwater Outcrops - a series of rocky ridges.

Travelling through Colorado and Wyoming, we eventually reached South Dakota and paused to take a look at Crazy Horse Mountain from a distance. This long term project, a sort of Native American homage in the style of Mount Rushmore, to the great Chief Crazy Horse, will eventually show him seated on his horse pointing out across the plains. If you look closely you can see the machinery working on the arm and the outline of his horse painted on the rock. Quite fabulous.

Moving onwards to our destination of Rapid City, our base for the next few days, we took a short walk along the shore of a picturesque lake where I blipped cute chipmunks running around the rocks. Then it was time to park up at Mount Rushmore and look at the famous sculpture of the Presidents, which we all agreed was much less tacky than we thought it would be. It is also surrounded by beautiful forest and amazing rock formations.

We are now settled in our Airbnb in Rapid City. Becky is cooking dinner and Rob has gone in search of wine. We took a longer than expected walk through the town earlier to shop at the natural foods coop, so Rob ordered an Uber lift back - it turned out to be a huge spanking utility truck driven by Mike who told us of his time as a photo journalist in the Military, really interesting. Probably the first and last time I will get to ride in one of those!