Lakota

After the Badlands we decided to head south for Nebraska. This would take us past the site of the Massacre of Wounded Knee where many Lakota Indians were killed, one of the final ´battles´ during the conflicts with the Native Americans. Not sure what I expected to see there, but there´s not much. No museum or building to mark the spot...just a wooden sign with a brief story and an old women selling native paraphernalia and some used paper pamphlets mark the spot. Another Lakota descendant gave us a very brief orientation on what took place where and that was pretty much it. Pretty depressing...the story and current situation.

Continued our drive on through the reservation toward Nebraska...coming into a town I neglected to slow down fast enough and was pulled over by a young Tribal police officer. He was nice enough to ask about my Florida license plate which gave me the perfect segue into that perfect get-out-of-jail-free line...¨On my way home...I just got out of the Marines, sir.¨ Little strange for me to call a 20 year-old sir, but gotta do it, and of course, he let me go.

The reservation itself, as well as the people and their appurtenances, was pretty dilapidated. Not sure how I feel about the whole reservation system and whether it is really working for anyone (never mind the whole Indian gaming fiasco that continues to spread nationwide) but I guess that´s the law and how it will remain.

The other thing in the area of note regarding the Lakota is the Crazy Horse Memorial near Rushmore...I had no idea it existed. Crazy Horse is being carved out of a mountain much like the presidents at Rushmore, although he´s going to be a bit bigger...the biggest sculpture in the world. We didn´t feel compelled to go see it since it´s not yet finished...but then the project started 60 years ago and is nowhere near finished so perhaps we should have taken what we could have gotten.