Mickelson Bike Trail and Crazy Horse Night Blast!

We sleep late and then drive a few miles down the road to the Mickelson bike trail. The Mickelson Bike Trail runs 109 miles through South Dakota. We're only biking a few miles of it, starting around the Crazy Horse Monument.

We bike a mile north to get a better view of the Crazy Horse Monument and then back to the trailhead and another 5 miles to Custer, South Dakota. We look around their visitor's center, get a bike tire fixed (it will be completely flat again tomorrow morning, so we really don't get it "fixed") and have lunch in downtown Custer. They have painted buffalo statues at several corners.

Then we head back to bike 5 miles UPHILL. It was a lot more fun biking downhill :-)

We drive back to the campground and head to the pool for a quick dip. There are two pools at the KOA so we head to the less crowded pool; we find out it's less crowded because every few minutes we get a whiff from the horse corral next door -- and it's not a good smell.

We quickly do some laundry before heading over to the Crazy Horse Monument. Twice a year they have a Nigh Blast and tonight is one of them. They set off 82 blasts in 82 seconds for the sculptor's wife/widow's 82nd birthday.

When we arrive, it is crazy full of people. I have no idea how many people have come for the Night Blast, but it must easily be in the thousands. We look at the monument and then see the movie.

The Crazy Horse Monument is a memorial for all the great American Indian leaders and will be the world's largest statue when it is completed. The mountain sculpture was started approximately 60 years ago. It is completely privately funded (no goverment funds) and is being worked on by the original sculptor's widow and 7 children. The finished sculpture will be a 3-dimensional statue of Crazy Horse riding his horse. Only Crazy Horse' face is finished so far. They have no idea when the remainder will be finished.

As we're looking at the sculptor's studio, the sky turns green and a large thunderstorm moves in. We wonder if the laser show and night blast will be cancelled, but around 9:45 they start the laser show and around 10:15 the blasts begin. It is an incredible sight--82 blasts at various places in the mountain in 82 seconds!