Sunday, July 06, 2008
Day 4: Mammoth Day
(Steps to our campsite)
It rained that night and the morning we awoke to find our entire campsite shrouded in mist. Well, we are at the top of one of the Black Hills, and it seemed a cloud had settled down on top of us.
Also, that night, a large group had parked and camped in the site above ours. They spoke a language that I didn't recognize, and I couldn't place. Until I saw their van the next morning.
(it reads USA-Sweden Roadtrip, Day 11)
It promised to be a grey and cloudy day, and that called for more sightseeing. How about a mammoth dig?
Hot Springs, SD has a working mammoth dig. You see, in 1974, a bulldozer on a building site unearthed a mammoth tusk. They called in experts and found that the site had been a sinkhole where 50-70 young male mammoths met their untimely end. The sides of the sinkhole were slippery shale and the mammoths (and other beasties too) fell in, never to get out.
Everything is left "in situ" which means it will be left in place, and casts of the bones and structures left by the mammoths are made to be studied and put on display, instead of removing them from their final resting place. The tour left a bit to be desired, but the exhibits were very informative.
Early man of Eastern Europe would make entire homes from the bones of mammoths and their hides. They replicated it here. Also in the sinkhole was a now extinct version of bear called the giant short-nosed bear was kind of a cross between a dog andn a bear with really long legs. Camels, who eventually would become extinct in America, but move to Asia and Africa and thrive. All sorts of very strange little beasties, even a mystery bone, which they can't quite place.
But after an hour, the crowds of children in the space got to be too much for me.
We went to a little pub in downtown Hot Springs. On their menu they had "Denver Nuggets" (Fried Cheese Curds) and something called Chisilik (deep fried sirloin steak). Good thing we just wanted burgers.
The strange thing was that on the televisions there they had this Japanese (maybe Korean?) soap opera on. It was subtitled and had a multi-layered storyline. This girl was fending off the advances of her ardent boss. This poor waif of a girl suffered as the assistant to a fashion model who was spoilt and enjoyed torturing her. I was actually getting into it. It was definitely not the sort of thing you'd imagine seeing in Hot Springs, SD.
After that, we didn't feel like spending more time battling crowds at the hot springs, and J drove us back to the campsite.
While he was driving, we cut through Wind Cave National Park. We saw prairie dogs as large as Monty and I saw some of the rocks that made the Black Hills famous. It came to me as I sat that they remind me, with their deep fissures, of the giant heads of Easter Island with mouths and noses and eyebrows. No wonder the Native Americans find this place to be holy. No wonder they were so mad when the white man took it away and started to bulldoze and dynamite the place. When Mt. Rushmore was completed they decided to build their own monument, and one day Crazy Horse will be its own monument to their people and this land.
(Not the actual buffalo we saw)
As I contemplated this, J drove across a bridge, and there, on the side of the road, sat a buffalo, not 5 feet from us. I didn't even have my camera ready and it wasn't exactly a safe place to stop for pictures. All over the Black Hills are signs that say "Buffalo are Dangerous! Do Not Approach!". Still people will get out of their cars with their cameras and stomp up to them. And they'll stop in ridiculous places too, along the side of busy highways and where it is clearly dangerous to be out of their car. I mean...it's a buffalo. And it's special and rare, but so are you!
(Steps to our campsite) It rained that night and the morning we awoke to find our entire campsite shrouded in mist. Well, we are at the top of one of the Black Hills, and it seemed a cloud had settled down on top of us.
Also, that night, a large group had parked and camped in the site above ours. They spoke a language that I didn't recognize, and I couldn't place. Until I saw their van the next morning.
(it reads USA-Sweden Roadtrip, Day 11)
It promised to be a grey and cloudy day, and that called for more sightseeing. How about a mammoth dig?
Hot Springs, SD has a working mammoth dig. You see, in 1974, a bulldozer on a building site unearthed a mammoth tusk. They called in experts and found that the site had been a sinkhole where 50-70 young male mammoths met their untimely end. The sides of the sinkhole were slippery shale and the mammoths (and other beasties too) fell in, never to get out.
Everything is left "in situ" which means it will be left in place, and casts of the bones and structures left by the mammoths are made to be studied and put on display, instead of removing them from their final resting place. The tour left a bit to be desired, but the exhibits were very informative.
Early man of Eastern Europe would make entire homes from the bones of mammoths and their hides. They replicated it here. Also in the sinkhole was a now extinct version of bear called the giant short-nosed bear was kind of a cross between a dog andn a bear with really long legs. Camels, who eventually would become extinct in America, but move to Asia and Africa and thrive. All sorts of very strange little beasties, even a mystery bone, which they can't quite place.
But after an hour, the crowds of children in the space got to be too much for me.
We went to a little pub in downtown Hot Springs. On their menu they had "Denver Nuggets" (Fried Cheese Curds) and something called Chisilik (deep fried sirloin steak). Good thing we just wanted burgers.
The strange thing was that on the televisions there they had this Japanese (maybe Korean?) soap opera on. It was subtitled and had a multi-layered storyline. This girl was fending off the advances of her ardent boss. This poor waif of a girl suffered as the assistant to a fashion model who was spoilt and enjoyed torturing her. I was actually getting into it. It was definitely not the sort of thing you'd imagine seeing in Hot Springs, SD.
After that, we didn't feel like spending more time battling crowds at the hot springs, and J drove us back to the campsite.
While he was driving, we cut through Wind Cave National Park. We saw prairie dogs as large as Monty and I saw some of the rocks that made the Black Hills famous. It came to me as I sat that they remind me, with their deep fissures, of the giant heads of Easter Island with mouths and noses and eyebrows. No wonder the Native Americans find this place to be holy. No wonder they were so mad when the white man took it away and started to bulldoze and dynamite the place. When Mt. Rushmore was completed they decided to build their own monument, and one day Crazy Horse will be its own monument to their people and this land.
(Not the actual buffalo we saw)As I contemplated this, J drove across a bridge, and there, on the side of the road, sat a buffalo, not 5 feet from us. I didn't even have my camera ready and it wasn't exactly a safe place to stop for pictures. All over the Black Hills are signs that say "Buffalo are Dangerous! Do Not Approach!". Still people will get out of their cars with their cameras and stomp up to them. And they'll stop in ridiculous places too, along the side of busy highways and where it is clearly dangerous to be out of their car. I mean...it's a buffalo. And it's special and rare, but so are you!
Labels: black hills, south dakota, vacation
¶ 5:07 PM
