At this point on our vacation, we had already driven by the Crazy Horse monument a few times. It's pretty difficult to miss, and clearly visible from the highway. After all, they're making the ENTIRE MOUNTAIN into a rock sculpture. To put the uninitiated into a proper prespective of the size of this, all of Mt Rushmore would fit on the head alone of the Crazy Horse monument. That hole in the mountain is as tall as a 10-story building (about 100 ft). That's BIG.
The entire site and project is privately funded, and there are no estimates when it will be completed. I can only hope it will be completed in my lifetime, but that's pretty doubtful.
I learned a lot at this site, and I think the kids did too. I found myself leaving with two deeper realizations: 1) that the Indians got totally shafted by the white man, and 2) the man Crazy Horse is far more significant to not only Indian culture but to National Culture as well. Overall, it was a sombering experience, but I think it's better that way.
One cool thing is you are able to take rocks that have been blasted from the mountain during the project. I picked one that has lots of colors in it. I'll keep it on my desk as a reminder of how I ought to treat others fairly and as a reminder of what Americans have done that frankly cause me embarrassment and shame.
We went in the evening so we could all watch the light/lazer show on the mountain after going through the video presentation and museums. My camera had a hard time focusing on something so far away in low light conditions, so I wasn't able to take many pictures. The second picture has the 1/34 scale model with the monument in the background. The last 2 pictures are blurry, it was a LOT of tweaking just to get those. For more pics and info, here is the link to the Crazy Horse memorial.
1 comment:
We learned quite a bit about Crazy Horse when we were studying about S. Dakota and Montana. I also wanted my kids to understand what you've been learning.
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