More vacation pics

While we were in South Dakota we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial.  They are making a lot of progress on the giant sculpture and it is quite impressive.  We learned that the man who started the sculpture is the same man who did Mount Rushmore.  Unfortunately he died after only completing the head of the sculpture.  His children have now taken over this huge task and they have more modern equipment to move a lot of rock.

This sculpture is so much bigger than Mount Rushmore!  We found out that all of Mount Rushmore would fit inside the head area!

After we watched their informational video and after looking at the sculpture we got to see some Native Americans play some drums and dance.  They were really good and there was some audience participation!!

                                                                                                                                                                 

Bison Behavior

While in South Dakota and North Dakota we noticed that Bison like to make wallows.  They rub themselves on the ground exposing the dry earth which helps them in several ways.  It helps them to shed their winter coat, it coats them with dirt that keeps bugs away and it is also soothing for them as the ground is cool.  Bison also rub against trees a great deal to help them remove their shedding winter coat.  We went up  and explored the wallows and some trees that looked very damaged and here is what we found!

 We found wallows of various sizes with lots of hoof prints and even some Bison fluff laying in them

Be also found a lot of different sized hoof prints as well.

There were plenty of trees that were damaged from the Bison rubbing on them, some were even dead!

And here's the evidence, Bison fuzz!!
We noticed that the Badlands of North Dakota are quite different than the Badlands of South Dakota!  The South Dakota Badlands are quite desolate looking, and the hills (if that's what you want to call them) look like they should be on an alien planet!

We visited part of Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota where they have Wild Horses!

They were so beautiful and majestic looking and some had adorable little colts with them!  There are two other areas of the park that are not connected that I would love to go visit some day.