Historic Chimney rock. Still formidable but eroding as I speak from the relentless wind and weather. Today it is several hundred feet shorter than when the intrepid pioneers used it for a navigational aid. All the traveler's names, carved so diligently into the sandstone have disappeared as well.

This sign to commemorate the short lived (1860-1861) Pony Express is located very close to Chimney Rock.

The Cabelas Store in Sydney, NE.

This fellow wanted his nose scratched. Isn't Joy brave?

Phil thought this stuffed elephant was pretty cool.

Simply gorgeous sunset on our way back to Scottsbluff from Sydney, NE.

3:19 pm Sunday, September 30, 2007

Apparently my blog has become a weekly series. I always hope to put fingers to keyboard (formerly known as putting pen to paper) more often and enjoy other blogs written daily, but for me (at least for now), that dedication seems beyond my capabilities.

From September 10 through 14, 2007 we chose this stop in Rapid City, SD because of the wonderful attractions located nearby and the fact that my maternal great grandmother who passed away 75 years ago spent three years of her life (1890-1893) not far away in Lead (City), under very stressful conditions. This history imparts strong family ties for me and whenever I am in the area I cannot help but feel closer to her. I will post a few pictures of modern day Lead and Deadwood.

Our visit to Crazy Horse Mountain was as wonderful this time as the last. Here are a some new shots to show you what it looks like today.

Crazy Horse Memorial, the world's largest sculpture, now in progress, is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota on US Highway 16/385 just 17 miles southwest of Mount Rushmore. The work was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski at the request of Native Americans. Korczak died in 1982. His wife Ruth and their family continue the project working with the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation

Phil checks out the beautifully embellished teepee inside the museum.

Inside the Crazy Horse museum. The exhibits continue to be superb although not much has changed since we visited in 2005. However, this fantasy buffalo was a new edition.

"My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know the red man has great heroes, too." These are the words Chief Henry Standing Bear wrote to sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski in 1939 urging him to visit the Black Hills and carve a mountain sculpture honoring American Indians. Fifty-five years after Ziolkowski began carving Crazy Horse Memorial, his family continues the dream and work progresses on the world's largest mountain sculpture. When finished, Crazy Horse will stand 641 feet long and 563 feet high

This statement will be engraved on the finished sculpture.

Photo-op on the viewing deck in the doorway of a replica of America's first traveling homes. Penny the Pace has a bit more room inside ... but not much!

Entrance to Lead (pronounced as leed). Founded in 1876 as a company town by the Homestake Gold Mining Company. The Homestake was the largest, deepest (8240 feet) and most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere. It closed in 2001 and has been selected as the site of the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, a proposed NSF facility for low-background experiments on neutrinos, dark matter, and other nuclear physics topics, as well as biology and mine engineering studies.

This plaque is the only information available.

West Lead Cemetery, obviously abandoned and left to ruin. It is a shameful thing to neglect the final resting place of so many citizens of this town.

One of the nicer homes on a very steep, dead-end street in Lead.

My maternal great grandmother, Mary Matilda Cox Criswell (aka "Mimmy") on her wedding day, June 26, 1873 in Eureka, KS.

Her husband, Alexander M. Criswell died from pneumonia in Lead (City), SD December 3, 1890.

He was 42 years old and they had been married 17 years. They were wintering over in Lead on their way west to Idaho from Nebraska.

Mimmy baked bread and took in laundry to support herself and her children until she married her second husband, Irwin G. Alger a year later in November 1891.

Entering the city of Deadwood, founded in 1876 after the discovery of gold. The influx of civilians with "gold fever" into the Black Hills which were/are sacred to the Native Americans set in motion the events leading up to the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Historic Main street in Deadwood, SD. The town was named for the dead trees found in the narrow canyon (Deadwood Gulch) nearby.