Day 2-BA2.12.1 is the current variant

At Mt. Rushmore….

Crazy Horse Monument…70 years in the making…

5/13/22. Friday

9:30-10:30 - K Bar offers a free continental breakfast so B. leaves to check it out and I make coffee in the room, then jump in the shower. B. brings back a covered plate with bacon and eggs - breakfast is decent, but I’m not much of a breakfast eater. I brought Lara bars and apples for snacks.

10:30-12:30 - We leave for Mt. Rushmore and we get there in around 20 minutes. In person, it truly is an awe-inspiring sculpture. I read that Trump wants his face to be #5. There’s an urban legend that a cave or tunnel sits behind the presidents’ heads where archival records are stored…B. checks with the docent and that urban legend is actually a lie! I genuinely thought a tunnel was installed as the sculptures were being carved, but it doesn’t exist.

We came before the summer rush so it’s not crowded…at least outside. When you enter the Visitor’s Center, though, it’s full and only the docents are masking. People are on top of each other and coughing all over the place - I’m not exaggerating. I feel so uneasy in the Visitors Center that I tell B. I’m going to wait outside for him, on a bench.

B. eventually exits and we check out the “nature walk.” This is a path involving numerous sets of wooden stairs that are cut into the side of the mountain. Make no mistake…we’re not even close to the actual sculpture…but it’s a nice trek with interesting placards along the way. The views are incredible.

It’s cold here, but it’s not a problem. I checked the weather in advance and brought my parka, wool hat, and gloves, I’m also wearing a sweater and jeans, however, many of the people are woefully underdressed. One girl, probably from California, is wearing shorts and a T-shirt - she is so cold, her arms and legs are bright red and splotchy. Other people are wearing sandals or flip-flops…they’re freezing.

B. and I decide to get lunch at the on-site cafeteria. It’s crowded at the counter where you order, but the seating is in a cavernous banquet hall that is probably packed during the summer months, but not so much now. Nevertheless, there is not enough social distancing here and tables are placed too close together so that we end up sitting next to a fat family of six. More coughing - I want to leave. An employee brings our trays over and the food is disgusting. The only thing I can keep down are the fries because it’s almost impossible to mess those up. B. orders something??? and eats all of it.

I’m good to go now - been there, done that. As Mom would say, “Cross that off our bucket list.” Nobody is masking in here.

12:30-4:00 - B. and I leave for the Crazy Horse Monument. Let me give you some background on Crazy Horse based on my preliminary research and my own conclusions (none of the below is openly discussed or referenced at either Mt. Rushmore or Crazy Horse). Here’s what I’ve pieced together:

Ok, so when I got here and saw the Crazy Horse sculpture I immediately thought, “This is very similar to Mt. Rushmore.” I mean it’s another huge head carved into the side of a mountain and it’s also right around the corner from Mt. Rushmore. What gives? Turns out, the Crazy Horse sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, first started working on the Mt. Rushmore sculpture in 1939 as a “sculptor assistant.” The sculptor on the Mt Rushmore project was named Gutzon Borglum and Gutzon’s son, Lincoln, was the “primary sculptor’s assistant.” Well, Ziolkowski thought he (Ziolkowski) should be the primary sculptor assistant and bitched about it to Gutzon. Seriously, people, of course Gutzon would make his own son (Lincoln) the primary, which means Ziolkowski was engaged in a losing battler. Gutzon’s response? He fired Ziolkowski. Ziolkowski, enraged, did a beat down on Lincoln, pummeling him until employees eventually broke up the fisticuffs.

It’s obvious what happened. Ziolkowski, with an “I’ll show you” vendetta, decided that “I’m gonna carve my own sculpture.” Basically, it’s a pissing contest between two men, except only one of them is butt-hurt; Gutzon never gave Ziolkowski a second thought after he was fired. So it’s really just Ziolkowski’s tantrum. But, the only people who will commission Ziolkowski to do a sculpture are the Indians. They ask Ziolkowski to create a sculpture of their famous Lakota ancestor, Crazy Horse, except they refuse to pay - there’s no money.

Beginning in 1939, Ziolkowski starts conducting and researching the sculpture. Four years later (1943), after all of this planning and research, nothing is done [put this fun fact in your back pocket - this is a recurring theme with Ziolkowski]. So, to remedy the situation, Ziolkowksi enlists in the US Army. Two years later (1945), he was wounded at Omaha Beach in Normandy and discharged so now he has to start working on the Crazy Horse sculpture.

Ziolkowski’s goal was to carve the largest sculpture in the world - Hmmm, I wonder why? - and he set about looking for the perfect rock formation, but after two more years (1947), the Lakota tribe bring Ziolkowski back to reality and demand that the sculpture be built in the Black Hills. Finally, the first dynamite blast occurs in 1948, almost 10 years after Ziolkowski was asked to carve it. Ziolkowski says the Crazy Horse monument will be larger than the 4 heads at Mt. Rushmore, combined. See? Pissing contest.

Flash forward to 2022 and the monument still isn’t finished. In fact, it has barely begun. You can see a prototype of what it will eventually look like in the Crazy Horse Museum, next to the Crazy Horse Cantina. Ziolkowski first started working on Crazy Horse’s stallion, but the progress was too slow and nobody gave a shit about a sculpture of a horse. it appears that, in order to generate public interest and assure the Lakotas that he was actually doing something, Ziolkowski scrapped the stallion and started working on Crazy Horse’s head, instead. Seeing a head emerge from a mountain is sexier, but as soon as the face came into view, it appears that the project tapered off and eventually stopped. What a surprise.

Probably the best thing Ziolkowski ever did for himself was to marry Ruth Ross, who was a volunteer at the monument and 20 years younger. I think it was Ruth who realized what a cash cow this crazy horse could turn into. They married in 1950 and, shortly thereafter, began charging the public 75 cents to come on grounds and see the progress. Spoiler Alert: there is no progress. It looks the same today as it did in 1950. I’m positive Ruth realized that Ziolkowski was going nowhere; no job, no sculpture, no nothin’ and TEN kids to feed. So Ruth turned Crazy Horse into a family empire. Outbuildings were added to the surrounding perimeter, to include a cafe, museum, and gift shop. As soon as the children were old enough, they went to work at the “family franchise.”

Ziolkowski died in 1982 at the age of 74 of acute pancreatitis. After his death, Ruth took over the project as Director of the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. In 2014, she died at age 87. All ten of the children have continued the carving of the monument or are actively involved in the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. Uh-huh. Of course they are - this incomplete sculpture is the family legacy. In fact, at this point, it doesn’t matter if the sculpture is ever finished.

It’s obvious that Ziolkowski and family have been bilking the public out of millions this entire time, encouraging them to pay a small fee and survey the non-existent progress of this monument. What a racket! B. and I took a bus ride tour to the base of the sculpture - we weren’t allowed to go any higher. The tour guide assured us that the sculpture was still a work in progress, but there were no workers there - the site looked desolate to me. The high point of the tour was when an actual mountain goat emerged out of nowhere and bounded up the rocky side of the cliff without falling. It was pretty incredible.

Don’t get me wrong - the Crazy Horse monument, i.e., the sliver of face that stands apart from the mountain, is spectacular, until you realize 70 years have passed and ‘this is all they’ve got.’ The bus takes us back down the hill and it’s starts snowing when we hit the parking lot.

4:00-5:00 - B. and I leave, mindful that the town of Keystone shuts down at 9:00. We stop by a grocery store to buy alcohol and note that, in South Dakota, grocery stores cannot technically sell alcohol. Only liquor stores can so the work-around is this: at the far end of most grocery stores is the alcohol section, complete with it’s own cashier and checkout lanes. This section of the grocery store also has its own exit. This is the stupidest set-up I’ve ever seen. As usual, nobody masks. It stops snowing within minutes of leaving Crazy Horse. The weather is on again - off again. Rainy, snowy one minute, literally clear skies the next.

5:00-7:00 - We return to our hotel room, put away the alcohol, and leave for the Ruby House Restaurant - it’s supposed to be an authentic, historical saloon, and it’s right around the corner from the K Bar. The restaurant is packed so that’s a good sign. Once seated, I learn that wait staff are not allowed to sell alcohol to the customers. All drink orders must be filled and delivered by the bartender. By that I mean, he is the only employee who can take our drink order. The restaurant is completely full and there is one, lone bartender, running all over the place - he is literally running - and it takes forever to get one round of drinks. Setting that aside, I like the Ruby House’s aesthetic - its exactly like an old-time saloon or hor house. The food is…not bad. All of the wait staff are fat again, except for one of the hostesses, who stands out because she’s thin and nobody in the joint is. People are coughing and nobody is masking. There’s a lot of coughing in Keystone and nobody bothers to cover their mouths.

7:00-7:30 - B. and I return to the room.

8:00-10:00 - Long day. I watch a few episodes of Forensic Files. Then, nighttime routine. Bed.