We started South Dakota with visiting the mammoth museum in Hot Springs, where the biggest cemetery of mammoths was discovered (ca. 60 dead mammoths that drowned in a pond thousands of years ago). The next big stop was the Wind Cave National Park. The most interesting part of the park was the vast prairie and numerous bisons, grazing just next to the road. We did some hikes through the hilly grassland and prairie dog towns, where the prairie dogs announced our arrival with high-pitched noises and then ran for their lives each time we passed. We also found some remnants of various animals that inhabit the prairie

We then ventured deeper into the Black Hills - a small mountain range dominating above the Great Plains. They are sacred to several Native American tribes that lived in the region and were initially left to the Lakotas as part of their reservation in 19th century for “as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers will flow”. Of course, the moment gold was found in the hills, the treaty was forgotten and the area was taken away from the Natives, and the reservation reduced. To this day, they fight to have the region returned to them.

It goes without saying that the Natives were (and still are) not overly happy about carving up four big faces in one of their sacred hillsides. However, there is a counterweight that has been sculpted in other part of the Black Hills since late 40s - an enormous monument of Crazy Horse, initiated by a Pole, Korczak Ziółkowski. He chose the place and designed the monument in cooperation with local tribes leaders. Korczak has been dead since 80s and it is his family that continues the work to this day, although the monument is far from being finished (it will take ages, so tell your great-grandchildren to come see it).

A big and cool part of Black Hills is encompassed in Custer State Park. Here, a scenic highway leads through interesting limestone formations and pine forests. We had some nice hikes and Antoine did a fun descent on the highway with his bike. There are also vast grasslands within the park with supposedly biggest bison herds in South Dakota, but we actually didn’t see a single bison there :P