The Great American Road Trip

I don't know that I had ever thought about what Rapid city, SD would be like, but it wasn't this.

I just assumed anyplace named Dakota would be sleepy and devoid of people. not at all. Downtown is thriving with a cool art scene and beautifully maintained old west architecture. Rapid City is also known as the President's City due to it's close proximity to a certain mountain carving of four of our presidents. One of my favorite things about this city is that on every street corner there are life sized bronze statues of presidents. I lost count of how many but at four corners per intersection they add up right quick. After hanging out with Couchsurfing host Chris and his neighbor Scott the night before, again swapping stories which is what couchsurfers do, I hit the streets looking for caffeine. When I got to my car there was a parking ticket on it. For $5. Never mind that the stated violation was for being parked over 72 hrs downtown (ummm, no I wasn't) for $5 it isn't worth fighting. Rapid City provided me with well over five bucks worth of value. I walked around downtown and discovered a coffee shop called Alternative Fuel. Digging the name and assuming some sort of liberal vibe I went in. Inside it looked like a really hip place with comfy leather couches, high cafe tables, a stage for local bands and a nice refrigerator case filled with yummy things. I ordered a latte and a slice of their tomato spinach quiche and started looking at the community boards. Curiously, there were a lot of posters for events promoting "Life" concerts looking like any poster you would see for a cool local band in say any small city USA. Then I started listening to the music being pipped in and the lyrics were referencing faith and Jesus. Holy crap! This was a christian youth coffee house. The alternative fuel was Jesus. mmmmm. Jesus.

So much for my preconceived notions. This place was hip AND faithful. Good for them. I think it's nice that people have recognized that many churches are out of touch to the younger folk in this country that they are working to fix that and that said youth are responsive to it. Now, I didn't tell them that I was a secular Jew, but the quiche was excellent. I also got a phone call while enjoying my born again coffee from my friend Joan and got to share my shocking revelation with her. It was great talking with her. One of my final acts at ACT was to hire her and one of the downsides about leaving was not getting to work with her. I think she brings a great energy for the job and is just an all around cool person. We'll hang out more when I'm back.

Chris was due back from work around 3pm and we were going to go climbing near Mount Rushmore so I headed out into the Black hills to do some more exploring before that happened. This section of Rapid City has taken the notion of Tourist trap and filled with with tourist attractions that actually sounded genuinely fun. I counted 4 mini golf places(one of them offering indoor blacklight golf), 2 go kart establishments, something called "The maze" which looked like a giant labyrinth, paint ball, 2 Christmas Villages (okay not genuinely interesting, but kitschy interesting) and a water park. Also near here is Sturgis which you may know as the home to the largest motorcycle rally in the world. This is Harley Davidson country. The thing I was most excited to see was the Crazy Horse Memorial. If you don't know, The Dakota tribe, pissed off about the building of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills (promised to them by some president or other and in typical USA/Indian relations never delivered) hired the assistant of the Ruchmore sculpter to build a monument of their own. This white, Polish artist moved into the black hills and set about to build a memorial to Crazy Horse who refused to sign any treaty and was stabbed in the back by a US soldier under a banner of truce. This memorial when completed (dude died in 1988 and his family continues his legacy) will be 16 times the size of Rushmore.

I seem to have a fascination with large scale projects that their designers know they will never see finished. Something about undertaking a project larger than they are that will be conitnued by generations to come. See Gaudi for more on this.

Having had preconceived notions of Mount Rushmore, now made even more acute by my visit to Crazy Horse, I took off to do a one eyed drive by and then hook up with Chris. Preconceived notion smashed again. I loved the memorial.

The whole set up, the piped in patriotic music the beautiful scenery, the decision to add Roosevelt and the thinking into which versions of the presidents to use, the whole thing was great. The snack bar was particularly wonderful. They sold President soda and I got to drink a bottle of Jimmy Carter Cream Soda. My favorite modern president and my favorite flavored beverage in one.

Chris and I hooked up and went for a really tough hike through the black hills that made my volcano hike look easy. Good thing I walked through that the other day, or I would chickened out on this one. We climbed to the top of this beautiful granite outcropping called Little Devil's Tower and was rewarded with breathtaking vistas.