For those who don't know, the Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction since 1948 and will be the world's largest mountain carving. It depicts Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing in the distance. The monument is fully funded by donations from the public and won't be completed for at least another 50 years.
As we drove along we saw a sign for
Newcastle! We were going to hop out of
the car to take photos but the town had a huge chemical factory and smelt toxic. It was cloudy with light rain and we took our
time on the drive before deciding to stop at Custer for lunch. I kid you not, I walked into a pie shop and
the Custer song was playing!! ‘Please
Mr Custer, I don’t want to goooooooooo.' My mum oftens sings the song
and the kids knew it – it was so funny!
Onwards we drove and we began to climb the
mountain on our way to Crazy Horse. All of a sudden, we were in thick fog and we could hardly see in front of our car.
Then Terry said, ‘What do you think it means if we can’t see 3 metres in
front of us?’ and then it hit me – we wouldn’t be able to see the Crazy Horse
Memorial! We arrived and were met with sad
faces from the tour! They had been there already for 2.5 hours. At the memorial, we learnt all about the Indian culture and Terry was once again in
heaven! As we left the memorial, we
planned to return the following day in the hope the clouds would lift. However, we were told there was a snow squall
forecast so our hopes weren’t high.
The weather was so bad we decided to head
to the Lodge in Keystone and chill out for a few hours. The town is shutting down for the winter and there was only
3 restaurants open. Thankfully, one of
those shops was the best pizza shop in town.
The boys ordered their cheese pizza (of course) and Terry and I had the
Buffalo & jalapeno pizza. We hadn’t
tried buffalo and we were keen to on our trip – it wasn’t too bad! The lady told us that Steve Irwin and his
family had visited her shop and sat at the next table. As we looked over, we saw a couple and on the
guy’s belt was a gun! A real cowboy,
with a visible gun, sitting in a pizza restaurant. It was just such a crazy and different sight
to see. At first I felt really
uneasy (holy crap) so I tried to turn
my thinking to how the Americans think (I learnt this from various Americans on
the tour). If someone was to enter and
start shooting, then this guy was going to shoot them back. It just seemed so crazy though – I don’t
think I could ever get used to it. The boys were highly impressed though!
Our first twinkie
Newcastle, Wyoming
Ok, so i think we need a break from the car
The pie shop with the Custer song
Everyone is getting ready for Halloween in the US - pumpkins everywhere!
All of a sudden Will finds history interesting - note his friend on the left
Terry once again educating James
A monument in progress
Crazy Horse - well, not the view we really wanted. For some reason i found it really funny that we had driven all that way and couldn't see it. How many people can say that?
Pizza shop with gun toting cowboys
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