The ThanksGiving Break
Air travel to Sioux Falls was uneventful - even the planes were on time. Then my niece came into my arms at the airport - which felt pretty good and my ego was floating out there in the 10th heaven momentarily until my sister went on to tell me :" ...o ,yeah ,she's quite social. she goes to almost everyone ..." karashboom fa-laat - that's how hard 'it' fell , though i recovered admirably and felt lucky that she did NOT reject me outright [ count your blessings they say ].

The weather held great and we finally got a glimpse of the midwest - rolling corn fields for miles and miles as far as the eyes could see. This is how i had pictured America , North America esply.California does NOT have it and i felt i had made peace with myself visiting South Dakota. Despite the cold , the migrating geese, the short wintry day, we drove all of the 425 or so icy miles to Mount Rushmore. Like my sister later put it : ' .. the journey was the best part ....' .Rushmore itself was quite magnificient but came w/ it's set of disappointments.Although , the history and making of the mountain heads were quite overwhelming - for its ambitiousness at the time ( no one ever had done such a project prior to this ) , for its speed of completion ( 14 years in all including stops for generating funds ) ,it's innovative and novel technology ( most of the heads were blasted by precisely placing dynamites on the mountain head -compare this to the way the egyptian Sphinx may have been constructed ) and for the choice and likeness of the Presidents -George Washington , Thomas Jefferson , Ted Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln -each of who are recognized instantly at such a large physical scale !
On the other side ,the mountain peak where the heads are carved isn't quite so imposing.The heads cannot be seen from far and as it turns out is just another average peak in the black hills.We also managed to miss the best viewing sites because lots of vista points were closed for the winter.

A nearby place - crazy horse -named after the last indian chief of the sioux frontier to 'surrender' to the union - tries to mimic Rushmore,only twice more ambitious in scale ,construction and funding [ refuses govt. funding in principle and works off 'public support' ]. So, you can guess the rest - the project has been going on since 1947 and is NOT even half finished.

By this time we were quite sleepy and detached to the going ons - having driven all night - and were ready to enjoy some unpolitical fresh air ! Thankfully, for us tired travellers there was an abundance of that at a scale only nature can provide in the beautiful and bewitching black forest surrounding us.The mountains were covered with glittering white snow and yet there was the canopy of the darkest green all around us.It was right out of walt disney's 'escape from the witch mountain' - enchanting and seducing.

We remembered the Doris Day song :
Take me back to the black hills , the black hills of dakota , to the beautiful indian country that i love
Lost my heart to the black hills, the black hills of dakota , where the pines are so high that they kiss the sky above

And when i get that lonesome feeling , and i am miles away from home ,
I hear the song of the mystic mountains calling me back home ,
So , take me back to the black hills .....

That song really completes the black hills experience . The journey continues .....