After my visit to Mt. Rushmore, I am a bit apprehensive about visiting Crazy Horse. My expectations are low but that quickly changes at the entrance booth. There is only a $10 admission fee with free reentry for a laser light show and blasting.

A nightly blasting happens once a year, weather permitting and tonight happens to be the night.

A short walk from parking and I am on a bus for a close up tour of Crazy Horse. The tour is $4 which I am happy to pay since all funding for this project comes from visitors and private donations. No public, state or federal money is being used or accepted to fund this monumental task.

Our bus tour is informative and gives us a good knowledge base about Crazy Horse. Did you know it will take another 80-100 years or more to complete this monument? Or that once completed it will be much grander than Mt. Rushmore?

At our only stop on the tour is a slab of granite the material from which the monument is being sculpture. Although it has a tough composition it still must be treated with heat to slow down decay from the elements especially ice.

So how much wood would a wood chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? Apparently, not much based on the skills of the ones running around Crazy Horse who spend most of their time chucking grass not wood.

Our tour drives by Korcaz's tomb which is interestingly has a door knocker on the inside. Korcaz designed it himself along with building his own coffin. Apparently, he told his family he would knock if he wasn't have too much fun and wanted to be let out. I have to appreciate a man with a sense of humor even I death.

Somewhat carrying on this tradition, our bus driver invites us to take a piece of the mountain home with us as a souvenir. Inside the museum there are pieces of blast rock which are free for the taking. According to the driver the rocks are just heavy enough that he used them for his mother-in-law's life jacket.

Video:
http://youtu.be/yqwOLj5iY8A