Pioneer Museum & Crazy Horse Memorial- South Dakota

We drove down to Hot Springs to visit the Pioneer Museum. The museum was the local schoolhouse until 1961. The building still contains much of the original school furnishings (blackboards, desks, flooring, etc). Also, there is one of the original outdoor carousels still on the museum grounds. The museum contains items depicting the early pioneers from the Hot Springs area. Much of the items can be touched and examined.

That is one, long rifle!

It looks like Maytag has been around for a long, long time!

According to Y, this is an old "permanent wave" machine. It looks like something out of a Frankenstein movie, to me.
I found it funny that the paddle (hanging on the left wall), contained the names of children. I guess they had been unfortunate enough to have a meeting with the paddle.

On the way back to Custer, we decided to take one of the less traveled roads (unpaved) that made its way through parts of Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park. During the drive we spotted prairie dogs and a white-tail buck.

Later in the evening we rode over to Crazy Horse Memorial, with John and Terri, for dinner and the nightly laser show. We all had Native American Tacos for dinner...hmm hmm good! As the sun went down the temperature dropped and the wind starting gusting. It was a good thing, we dressed warmly. The laser show is displayed on the monument and lasted about 20 minutes. It's definitely a "don't miss" item.