Rattlesnakes?

Look. I am guessing that is not the sign that anyone wants to see before stepping onto a trail, and yet there it was, gleaming in the early morning sun.

Shit.

The trail that we chose in the Badlands was a 4-mile loop called Medicine Root Trail. There was no mention of rattlesnakes anywhere in the hiking brochure that the nice ranger lady gave us the day before in the Visitor's Center. They really should edit that in. But, despite my misgivings, we ventured in, wading through the waist-high, trail covering yellow sweet clover. We saw lots of lovely desert (I guess?) plants...

This was a clearer part of the trail.

On the trail, we met some people from Fletcher, NC and this little six-legged thing - but NO no-legged things.

More random photos of the Badlands:

How do they paint those lines so straight all the way across???

Saying buh-bye to the Badlands and their rattlesnakes, we headed to the Crazy Horse Monument, which has been in the process of being created since 1948. (The maps took us down dirt roads. I've not collectively in my life been on as many dirt roads as we were on today.) The Memorial is something: Invited by Chief Standing Bear in the late 1930s, this dude named Korcza Ziolkowski from Boston moved to the Black Hills and both envisioned and started creating a memorial to the Native Americans who once lived free on this land. The tribes decided that they wanted this monument in their sacred Black Hills, so that's where it is. He and his wife, Ruth, whom he met when she volunteered to help with construction, lived on the site in a log cabin that he built (and added onto, since they had 10 children). The monument is HUGE; the entire sculpture of Mount Rushmore would fit on Crazy Horse's arm, so I am told. It's quite the undertaking and all done with private funds. 

Then, it was off to Deadwood (the one in the HBO series) to visit Mount Moriah Cemetery where Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane, among others, are buried. It's all very touristy, which is too bad. From there, we went to Spearfish to see a college friend, Lynn Gleaton Larson. We had drinks and dinner with Lynn and her husband, Brad. We also got to meet two of their four grown kids. We had a great time before driving into the sunset to Sundance (as in the Kid) for the night.