I forgot to mention yesterday's trip to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It is amazing. Dwarfs the sculpture at Mt. Rushmore, which I didn't visit. I figured I spend George all the time; Live by some of Abe's principles, and try to walk softly as T.R. recommended. Is that really Neil Diamond next to George? Well, I like a couple of his recordings. Didn't go to the Little Big Horn Battlefield. I'm glad they renamed it. Why memorialize a guy who was in the bottom of his class, let his ego lead him and all his men to their deaths and was really a loser. George Armstrong Custer---reminds me of another George. Anyway, I didn't want to go to Wounded Knee-couldn't finish the book, and felt that it would have affected me a lot like the Vietnam Wall in Washington. Don't need to feel that kind of sadness. Went to Crazy Horse to offer a little apology for all that some of my ancestors did. Means nothing to anyone but me. In the sculpture he is pointing to his lands. When asked where his lands were he answered, "...where my dead are buried."

I'll try to slip in a couple more photos. Only viewed them in thumbnail mode, so bear with me. I miss the Nikon and the Canon film cameras as I would have better exposures, but then I'd pay an arm and a leg for processing.

Up at Zero-dark-thirty tomorrow to catch the Tower bathed in dawn red, and then off on a diagonal course to reconnect with the AAA route. Don't know how long it will take, whether it will save or cost time, but it will be off the beaten path. Do I hear banjos? Hope there are no more close encounters with large animals. Almost bagged a muley doe last night doing 65 (the limit) in the mountains. Swerved, and missed her by inches (really), but then the Pod decided to steer for me and I had to fight it for a few hundred feet.