Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota

The Crazy Horse Memorial is located close to Mt. Rushmore. While Mt. Rushmore is the more popular attraction, the Crazy Horse Memorial is the more interesting to visit.

The Crazy Horse sculpture is still being worked on. Currently a crew of ten works on it daily and at times you can see them working. You might even be there on a day when blasting is scheduled. The face has been completed enough such that Crazy Horse can be clearly identified.

While Mt. Rushmore has a very sanitized and bland feel, the Crazy Horse Memorial has character and the excitement of a BIG dream that is slowly coming true. You can even take home a piece of the mountain - free. Actually we took five pieces - our bus driver said they were trying to get rid of the stuff.

Speaking of the bus, pay the extra $4.00 to take the bus ride closer to the base of the mountain. It gives you a spectacular view and the bus drivers are filled with information and trivia about the mountain, the Ziolkowski family and the history.

The Crazy Horse Memorial includes a large museum divided into several sections. The majority of the area is devoted to Native American history and artifacts. There is a small, but very interesting section that is a part of the sculpture's original home (his wife still lives in part of it). Another section shows the sculpture's studio. A separate building houses additional exhibits on the lower floor and you can purchase Indian crafts, handwork and materials direct from the artists and craft people on the upper floor.

In the center area of the buildings is a large plaza that provides an excellent view of the mountain.

The food appeared to be as expensive as Mt. Rushmore so we only had a couple of root beers and then made tuna sandwiches in our van.

One of the employees in the gift shop recommend that we watch the light show from our car in the upper parking lot. He said that the people watching it from the plaza would be taking flash pictures and causing a distraction. Plus the seats in the plaza are hard and a car would be more comfortable. I think he was right about the flash pictures. The people in the cars around us continually were taking flash pictures of the laser light show - although using a flash to take a picture of laser light projected on a mountain that was at least a half mile away makes no sense. I did try using my video camera. It didn't have a tripod so I set it on the roof of our van. The resulting video came out pretty good.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is located close to Mt. Rushmore so you can see both in one day.