Our plan was to drive from Chicago 
to Yellowstone over 4 days, staying in Fairmont, Rapid City, Buffalo and then Cody on the way. Once we got on the road though, we realised that they were a lot more empty than we thought and that we may as well drive into the night to get to Yellowstone faster.
So, we drove 900 miles on Thursday (14 hours!) and made it all the way to Rapid City on the first night, then nearly 500 miles yesterday via Mount Rushmore 
straight to Cody, which means we get an extra night in Cody and an extra night in Yellowstone!
Anyway, just outside Radid City we stopped at Mount Rushmore , which was fairly impressive and makes for some good cheesy photos.
Much more interesting however was the Crazy Horse Memorial being built 20 miles down the road in the middle of Black Hills National Forest . It was commissioned in 1948 by the Lakota Indians to serve as a permanent memorial to Crazy Horse . It was originally being sculpted by one man, Korczak Ziółkowski , until he died in 1982 and his sons and daughters took over. It’s a long way from being finished, they’ve only made it as far as his face and arm so far but it’ll get there eventually.
Whilst Mount Rushmore is a government funded memorial, built quickly as a tourist attraction to bring people to South Dakota, the Crazy Horse memorial is a labour of love, which has real meaning for the tribes still living in Black Hills. It’s also going to be 6 times as big as Mount Rushmore.
We then had an incredible trip to Cody, right through the middle of Bighorn National Forest (scene of the Battle of Little Bighorn), driving straight across part of the Rocky Mountain Range . I’ve tried to capture some of the landscapes as we drove up the steep mountain path overlooking the prairies but somehow it doesn’t really translate in 2D. I’ll try to do better in Yellowstone.