Garden Ramblings: September 2009

On Saturday, September 12th, we made a trip to Rapid City, SD, to visit with Vivian Pooley and her family.

Lee met the Pooleys when he was at Tinker Air Force base in Midwest City, OK in 1967, and has kept in touch with them all of these years. I felt like I knew Vivian and her daughters, Jo and Sue, from hearing Lee talk about them. Sadly, Vivian's husband, Carroll, passed away in 1980.

We had been wanting to make a trip to Rapid City, and we decided that this was a good time of the year to do it.

We flew on Northwest, on a pass, which is always iffy, especially since we had to change planes in Minneapolis, and then fly into Rapid City. But we got there just great - even got first class on the leg from Minn. to Rapid City. Vivian was there to meet our flight when we arrived at 5:30 pm.

Vivian lives outside of Rapid City, on a lovely, wooded 10 acre area. She has a lovely home, a triple-wide manufactured home, that we just loved! We saw deer each day on her property, as well as resident bunnies and wild turkeys. Just beautiful!

Vivian's daughter, Sue, her husband Dan and son Clay live near her, on similary situated property. We got to see Sue, Dan and Clay, too, and it was great to be able to spend time with them.

Vivian was a great tour guide! We started Sunday very leisurely - drinking coffee and visiting before breakfast. It rained in the morning, but began to clear after lunch, so we went into Rapid City, which is known as the city of presidents! There are statues of most of the presidents in downtown Rapid, on each corner of two streets. It was fun to look at all of them, especially the older presidents that aren't as well known as Washington and Lincoln. The sculptures are amazing, and all have plaques showing their terms as president, as well as the dates of their birth and death. Very interesting! It took most of Sunday afternoon to see all of the presidents, and other sculptures downtown. In fact, we took a break halfway through and had pie and ice cream! The first time I'd ever had cinnamon ice cream - yum!

Sue, Dan and Clay came for dinner Sunday night, and we planned our sight-seeing activities for Monday. Sue doesn't work on Monday, so she joined us, while Dan and Clay had to go to work and school.

Our first stop on Monday was at Mt. Rushmore. We got there via the Iron Mountain highway. There are several mountain tunnels on this road that perfectly frame Mt. Rushmore - just amazing!

Mt. Rushmore has been on my "must see" list for decades, and it was truly amazing! The visitor's center was just great, and we even got to meet one of the few remaining men who worked on the monument. We saw the film on the building of the monument, visited the sculptor's studio and the museum. It was an amazing undertaking that was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum. The work began in 1927, and the heads were dedicated as they were finished - Washington in 1930, Jefferson in 1936, Lincoln in 1937 and Roosevelt in 1939. It is just awesome that 400 workers, using dynamite and jackhammers were able to accomplish this feat, at a cost of less than $1 million. Borglum chose the presidents himself, based on bringing the nation from colonial times into the 20th century.

Can you imagine this project being kicked off today? It would take decades just to decide which presidents to depict!

I think that everyone should be able to see this amazing monument for themselves - it's incredibly powerful.

Monday afternoon we visited another monument - the Crazy Hore Monument - which is still in process. This sculpture, on a much larger scale than Mt. Rushmore, was designed by Korczak Ziolkowski. He was completly self-taught and had no formal lessons in art, sculpture, architecture of engineering. He won first prize at the New York World's Fair with a sculpture he submitted. At that point, Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear asked Korczak to come to the Black Hills and carve Crazy Horse, as a monument to all American Indians.

Work begin in 1948, when Korczak was almost 40. He worked alone in the beginning, and refused any federal or state funding. Work continued, and the head was revealed in the 1980's, after Korczak's death. His wife, and seven of his 10 children are continuing the work on the monument, which, when finished, will be the world's largest carving. It was pretty amazing to see, although it certainly won't be finished in our lifetime! Maybe Nick will be able to see it completed!

Monday was a pretty full day. We all had dinner at Vivian's on Monday night (she worked crockpot magic!), and we were in bed fairly early.

Tuesday morning we went to Custer State park. We drove the wildlife loop, and saw LOTS of wildlife! Custers is a huge, amazing park, and we drove through it for about 3 hours! We saw a cattle drive, "begging" burros, antelope, deer, buffalo and prairie dogs! Between Lee and I, we took about a million pictures!

After the park, we went into Custer for lunch. Vivian knew the perfect place for us to go - the Purple Pie Place! We all had the Senior Special - a small sandwich, chips, and PIE! After lunch, Vivian took us on the Needles highway, where we saw the most amazing rock formations that I have ever seen. The highlights of the highway were several rock tunnels and a "needle" rock with an eye in it. It was a gorgeous, warm day, and perfect for a drive. After the needles, we went to Sylvan lake. Lee and I both fell in love with Sylvan Lake - I can see us spending a week there, easy! Well, at least a day, picnicking, hiking and swimming. It's a wonderfully tranquil lake!

Tuesday night we had Mexican food at On the Border, a new restaurant in Rapid City. Then it was back to Sue and Dan's for some final pictures. We had such a great time that we have already made plans to go back next September, and stay longer! We'll be there for the Buffalo Roundup and the huge craft fair that happens the same weekend. We have a whole list of "next time" activities planned, although we certainly squeezed in lots in the few days that we were there.

By the time we left, I felt like I'd known Vivian forever, that we were old friends. It was hard to say good-bye, and I'm looking forward to seeing her again.

Here's Miss Princess Pooley - Vivian's minature schnauzer. She's just adorable.

Downtown Rapid City - you can see that the rain had cleared away and the sky was blue.

We visited Prairie Edge. They had an amazing selection of Indian items.

A view of the store from the second floor.

The first president of the United States - George Washington.

Here's a close-up, that shows the amazing likeness and detail that was present in all of the sculptures.

More downtown Rapid City.

This is a tunnel on the Iron Mountain highway - you can see Mt. Rushmore in the distance, framed in the tunnel.

We stopped at a look-out - we're getting closer!

The sculptor

The entryway into the monument.

Susie, Pat and Vivian at the entrance of the monument.

The Avenue of Flags. There are 56 flags there - for the 50 states and 6 districts, commonwealths and territories.

Flags and Mt. Rushmore.

Getting closer

We even saw one of the mountain goats that reside near the monument.

President Washington

Another shot of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln

And another shot

Here we are, with the monument behind us

View of Washinton from behind the monument

Here is the monument of Crazy Horse. You can see the face, and the arm stretching out. If you expand the picture, you can see the head of the horse painted on the side of the mountain.