Rapid City, SD to Butte, MT

Jon and I got up at 6AM and drove to Mt Rushmore. We arrived right when the park opened. It was the most quiet place I think I've ever been. Only a few other tourists were there with us and the wind was cold and faint. Seeing the famous monument in person is an interesting experience: it's large and small at the same time. Large for a sculpture, large compared to the humans it represents, but small compared to the giant mountains surrounding it.


I have only two things to say about driving through Wyoming and Eastern Montana:

1 - Why did we feel it necessary to take this part of the country away from the Indians?
2 - Why can't we give it back to them?


Driving through the Rocky Mountains was not as harrowing as I had imagined. There was one long climb and descent right before we entered the valley where Butte is located. It also happens to be the continental divide with an elevation of 6393 ft. The truck was slowed to 35 mph and there was occasionally the illusion that you were going downhill when you were in fact still going uphill, but at less of an incline. You expected to speed up, but the truck kept grinding its way up the mountain.

The sun was an apocalyptic red as it set in front of us; masked by the smoke of Montana's recent wildfires. In a simpler time, we might have taken this as an ill omen causing us to break out into fits of God appeasing rites as we flogged and pierced and wailed and danced in the hopes that we might be spared from his damnation. Being modern creatures, we knew this kind of behaviour was pointless. We were spending the night in Butte, Montana. We were already damned.

Day 7 - Rapid City, SD to Butte, MT