10-23-Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse then Sheridan WY

October 23, 2015, Friday

We went to Mount Rushmore this morning-an awesome sight!  The cost was $11 per car for admission, and the Golden Eagle yearly Park Pass does not apply to that fee. It was much more developed than Anne remembered, to her great disappointment. I didn't remember being there at all, until we took the pathway to the old viewing platform. I remember the stones of the old walkway, so this must be one of the places that I visited when I was five years old.  

 

We accidentally went to the Crazy Horse Memorial, just down the road. The cost was $11 per person, or $28 per car. It was well worth the price! This site has a Museum of the American Indian, the great restaurant, information on the stone carving project (the 30 foot face of crazy horses complete, and his hand is almost complete), and much historical information.

 

The museum even has some of the actual beads that were used to trade for Manhattan Island, back when the Dutch were driving a hard bargain for New York real estate. We picked up a piece of the crazy horse Memorial rubble, and took it with us in our car.

 

We drove to Sheridan, Wyoming, and stayed at the best Western, 612 N. Main St., Sheridan, WY. 307 – 674 – 7421. Sheridan is my dad's hometown. We called dad and mom, and dad asked us to call his old high school classmate, John J McWilliams, who was married to Mary Ellen McWilliams. I was able to speak to Mary Ellen on the phone. Sadly, her husband John died in July 2015 after a long illness. She will send a note to my dad and mom.

 

There were pictures of rodeo parades from the mid-1930’s on the walls of the hotel.  At least one of them had a couple of tow-headed boys that could be Dad, his brother or cousin, or maybe someone that he would recognize.  

 

 I took pix of the pictures just in case.   

Dad also told us about going out to the 'Wagon Box Fights' with his boyhood friends and finding bits of  brightly colored wood and rusty metal from the conflict 70 years earlier.  This historical marker fills out the details a bit;

 

I remember about 15 years ago that he had some sagebrush on the dashboard of his old station wagon.  He let me smell the spicy aroma of it, and told me it was the smell of his childhood home.  So I got some sagebrush from the side of the road, and mailed it to Dad in Florida.