Our Weekend: Part I (of 3) CRAZY HORSE

Crazy Horse (Lakota: Thašųka Witko, literally "His-Horse-is-Crazy")^[1] (ca. 1842 – September 5, 1877) was a respected war leader of the Oglala Lakota, who fought against the U.S. federal government in an effort to preserve the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life. (Source: Wikepedia) There is a lot of history in the Black Hills of the Lakota, gold mining and conflicts thereof.

So, beginning 60 years ago, Crazy Horse monument was starting to be blasted out of the hillside, like Mount Rushmore. Here is a pic of the model and what is being done so far. It is above Hill City, South Dakota.
To help raise money for the project (they only blast as they have the money) and the food bank in Rapid City, they held their annual walk up to Crazy Horse. It is always closed to the public except for this one day a year.
I hear about 15,000 people make the walk during the weekend! I don't know how far it is, but my stepper measured 16,903 steps!

We (Scott from Wyoming and his daughter, Agusta, my Scott and me) started from the make-shift parking lot in a field. There were people on their horses playing traffic cop. Agusta wanted to pet the horse named Cinder.

After we walked 1/4 mile from the field to the real parking lot, I took this pic and it is zoomed in.

There isn't an actual trail, per se, except for the one prepared for this special day. It meanders through the woods.
There's my hiking crew! It was a cool, cloudy day, which helped because the hike was hard!


Agusta was a trooper! Sometimes she pretended she was the rare cheetah girl!
This little guy, probably 3, did pretty good until the end. He was so cute. When his dad carried him ahead of us, I waved and we made faces back and forth.
Getting closer! Eventually the meandering trail brought us back to the official road the workers used.
You can see the people up there on the arm. The White sketch is the outline of Chief Crazy Horse's horse. Still lots of blasting to be done!


Here we are in front of my favorite kind of trees - Quaking Aspen.

You can see the construction ramps here and below is the debris they have already blasted away.
I think this was the 3rd checkpoint. They had 4, where you presented your registration card and could buy water, fruit, jerky or candy if you wished.

This part of the hike wasn't very easy! You're close and walking on the steepest part!

Good thing there were porta-potties along the way!

We were almost there and spotted 4 mountain goats. Here's one!

We reached the blasting area...

So many people, such gorgeous Black Hills!

Our parking lot is actually just north of the trees in the meadow area...


And here is his face up close. I don't see how they can do this so detailed! It's remarkable!

And so is the countryside. Vel and I used to live in the Black Hills and I really appreciate their beauty.
Here's husband and I!

It was a great hike! Next up: Part 2 MOUNT RUSHMORE

WOOHOO!

Friday is our last day of school! 1/2 day with kids, 1/2 day to put away our room, then

NO MORE CONCERTS
NO MORE BOOKS

NO MORE STUDENTS'
DIRTY LOOKS!

Sometimes,

Gus uses my pillow, and sometimes......
he uses me!

Our First Float/ Not First Camp!

We finally had a great-weather day to float the Stillwater into the Yellowstone! Here we are getting our ready!
Scott's dad is checking his gear in the waterproof bags, while Scott puts on Gus's life jacket.
And here are my essentials that I need to take--sun screen, water, sunscreen lip balm and bug spray- just in case.

Here's the boat ramp where we launched off into the Stillwater which usually runs 500 CFS (cubic feet of water per second, yesterday it was at 2200 CFS!)
So here we are on the water. It wasn't long before we had all sorts of fun waves crashing into the boat. Unfortunately, I had to put my camera away, so this is the only shot I got!
That is, until we stopped at a little island for our yummy lunch!

Here is the Yellowstone, which ran about 500 CSF all winter (that's low) but it was 24,000 CFS yesterday! Usually the water is beautifully clear, but this is spring run-off which turns the water brown.
And here's a sign of a healthy river...cottonwoods of all sizes! The float was so much fun!

So after only a couple hours of floating (usually you to 2-3 mph, but it was about 5 or 6 in this water) we tootled back up to where we put in, because it has such a beautiful campground that's FREE! You can see how much snow we have in the high country--hasn't even hardly started to melt!

After we got settled into our camp spot (and took a nap) we went for a walk along the banks of the Stillwater. Here are chokecherry blossoms. They bushes are loaded, hopefully I'll be able to harvest some this fall and make yummy chokecherry jelly and syrup like mom taught me!

This is a gooseberry plant and Vel and JO JO can vouch the berries are the sourest dang things! One time, we convinced mom to make a pie with them and even with her putting in an EXTRA amount of sugar, it was still too tart to eat! However, when you are young and outside having fun, they are yummy yummy no matter how sour they are! But watch out for their thorns!

Ahhh, the river is a fine habitat for beavers. This one had a good start, but decided the tree was a bit too big! lol
I have no idea what this deciduous bush it, but it has little cones, like a coniferous tree does!


And the banks were covered with the cutest little white flowers...
Here's a water birch, loaded with blossoms, as well. I love the red.
Here's Scott enjoying Gus Bob in the water...
And as we followed our scout along the river, he led us to a beaver pond! There's something about sticks in the water that Gus just cannot resist.

There's a nice, freshly-beaver chewed still! Good job, Gus! lol
We didn't seen any beaver, just their slides and here's a paw print!
We got back to camp, had a yummy dinner, settled into bed and read a bunch, Gus took a nap, then we all settled into night-night land...
Until the redneck-drunken neighbors came back to their camp at 2AM, hooting and hollering and playing their music incredibly loud. We laid awake and suffered for a while...it didn't go away...
We packed up camp and was home in bed by 4AM. That's the only trouble with the free-camping spots. There's no one there to monitor. Every Rose has it's thorn.