2016-06-19 07:00:00
“Rapid City?” asks the check-in clerk at the airport. “Where, please, is that?” No, after Rapid City, South Dakota, he’s never checked anyone in. “Do you have relatives in South Dakota?” asks the nice American woman on the plane to Washington DC, where we have to change planes for the first time. She can’t imagine visiting the state in the north-west of the USA voluntarily, without any family obligations.
Source: Infographic The World
South Dakota is actually not a typical vacation state. South Dakota has Mount Rushmore National Memorial, the four presidential heads carved into the mountain. The Oscar-winning western Dances With Wolves, starring Kevin Costner. Finally, as the most well-known personality, the Indian chief Sitting Bull. But otherwise?
Hardly landed in the mini airport of Rapid City, the arduous journey is forgotten – everything is totally easy. A few steps to the rental car and you can cruise along the highway in a relaxed manner – no one honks, no one jostle, no one seems to be in a hurry. Rapid City is the state’s second largest city with a population of just 70,000, making it an ideal hub for all of the state’s attractions. Our forest green SUV fits perfectly into the rural area.
Where the buffaloes graze peacefully
Watch out for all kinds of wild animals, especially at dusk. A particularly large number of dead skunks lie on the side of the road – their bestial stench lingers on the car for weeks after the impact. Custer State Park in western South Dakota is known for its wildlife and is home to deer, moose, prairie dogs, burros, wild donkeys, coyotes, pumas – and over 1000 bison.
A herd of bison appears in the rearview mirror of an SUV in Custer State Park
Quelle: picture alliance / All Canada Photos
The buffaloes, archetype of the Wild West, graze leisurely along the road, sleepy-looking behemoths who approach the car curiously. But: “Buffalos are dangerous”, signs warn of the wild, unpredictable animals. They attacked people and cars, says park ranger Craig Pugsley. They particularly like to take motorcycles by the horns – the noise of a stationary machine irritates the buffalo to the breaking point.
Thousands of motorcycles, better Harley-Davidsons, thunder through the prairie. Every year in August, the world’s easy riders meet in Sturgis. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is the largest motorcycle event ever. In the anniversary year 2015, one million bikers made the small town vibrate. Sturgis consists primarily of Hot Leather Shops; Whether leather vest or baby bib, everything is printed with a skull. Bikers’ hearts beat faster in the large Harley-Davidson store – only there are no helmets here, in South Dakota you ride topless.
Everyone has a gun here
The Black Hills with the deep pine forests are a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts, for hikers, bikers, especially for hunters and fishermen. Camping is allowed everywhere, lighting fires only in official places. Gigantic outdoor shops carry everything an adventurer desires: from camping gear and fishing gear to guns – pistols and rifles, also in pink for princesses.
In front of the saloon in the former gold rush town of Deadwood
Source: picture alliance / blickwinkel/U. Brunbauer
Everyone here has a gun at home, for hunting and for their own safety, confirms Cole Wishy, who owns a gun shop and shooting center in Deadwood. The only restriction: Compared to Texas, where the gun can now be carried openly on the belt or over the shoulder, in South Dakota it has to be hidden under the shirt. Wishy’s tip: The pistol should always be loaded and kept ready to hand, because “everyone has the right to shoot burglars,” according to the former FBI agent.
His shop, Deadwood Guns, is appropriately located below Mount Moriah Cemetery, where legendary gunslingers Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. Once a notorious gold mining town, Deadwood still lives on from its former bad reputation. The bars tempt with gambling, and historic Main Street hosts Wild West gunfights every afternoon in June and July.
A poor country rich in nice people
Gun fanatic Wishy explains that crime in South Dakota is low, referring to Governor Dennis Daugaard’s gun-friendly policy. South Dakota is Republican through and through. A poor state, but rich in nice people, “the friendliest people in the country”, the governor praises at every opportunity. In fact, we meet many friendly, helpful and polite people. Gentlemen in jeans, boots and cowboy hats.
In the town of Deadwood, a man presents his guns
Source: picture alliance / blickwinkel/U. Brunbauer
In South Dakota, people eat burgers, with the Buffalo burger being the healthier option because it is leaner. With luck, the vegetarian finds a veggie burger. Milk is considered the official drink in the farming state, but the cowboy, it seems, has taken a liking to wine. A pioneer among winemakers is Prairie Berry Winery a few miles outside of Hill City. The wines are called Gold Digger or Rednecks, and the rhubarb wine called Red Ass has won several awards. The cowboy likes his wine cool, by the way, he fills the wine glass to the brim and grasps it at the top of the goblet.
Of course, a detour to Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills is part of the travel program. Right hand on left breast, a group of patriots gaze up at the granite-carved, oversized heads of the Presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln gleam in the morning sun – the Stars and Stripes proudly wave in the wind alongside the men.
“We have no future, no hope”
Just a short drive away pays homage to the brave Oglala Lakota Indian chief, Crazy Horse. It will be many years before the colossal sculpture, Steed and Rider, carved into the mountain, is complete. The Visitors Center is intended to bring visitors closer to the history of the Indians. A Lakota drums in front of a tipi, the squaw dances to it – folkloric memories of happier times.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a memorial commemorating US Presidents George Washington (1st US President, left to right), Thomas Jefferson (3rd), Theodore Roosevelt (26th), and A…braham Lincoln (16th). ) remind
What: Moritz Hager
Today, however, Indian life is sad and dreary: 35,000 Indians live in the Pine Ridge Reservation, homelands of the Oglala Lakota People, more than half of them below the poverty line – it is the poorest reservation in the USA.
80 percent of the indigenous people are unemployed, many are homeless, even more alcoholics, and nowhere in the country is the suicide rate higher. “We have no future, no hope,” says Jesse White Hawk, a young Lakota. He sits in the Singing Horse Trading Post – and waits. It’s been a long time since a tourist came to ride a horse. The Trading Post with motel and shop for Indian handicrafts has been managed by Rosie Freier for 20 years. She comes from Frankfurt, nowhere does she feel safer than on the reservation.
But many travelers are afraid to go to the reservation, says Arlin Whirlwind Horse, 54, who works as a tourist guide in Kyle. Incidentally, you don’t say “Indians” either, corrects Whirlwind Horse, whose great-grandfathers rode Crazy Horse: “Indians come from India.” “Native Americans” is the correct expression. He also doesn’t like the term Sioux, the French gave them the name, it means “snake in the grass”. “We are Lakota, this is our tribe.”
The Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills: a memorial to the Oglala Lakota Indian chief
Source: picture alliance / blickwinkel/U. Brunbauer
Whirlwind Horse feels let down by the government. “Republicans don’t like Indians,” he says. But President Obama, too, has fallen out of favor since he has been striving for stricter gun laws. “First they take away our guns, then they slaughter us. Like back then at Wounded Knee.”
In the middle of a gigantic lunar landscape
The Wounded Knee Museum in Wall is dedicated to the battle that broke the Indians’ last stand against the whites. Back in the winter of 1890, when US cavalry soldiers were slaughtering unarmed men, women and children. The carloads of tourists who flood the small town in the middle of the prairie every day are more interested in Wall’s legendary drug store, shop for western junk and sip what is supposedly the cheapest coffee in the nation for five cents.
The Badlands. Here the question “Why South Dakota of all places?” is superfluous.
Quelle: Getty Images/Moment RF
Wall is the starting point for visiting Badlands National Park. “Land is bad,” said the Indians at the sight of the various torn rocks, “too bad for crossing.” Signs warn of rattlesnakes. Anyone who goes hiking here must first report to the ranger – and have plenty of water with them.
But despite or perhaps because of their threatening character: the sight of the Badlands, this gigantic lunar landscape, finally silences the question “Why South Dakota of all places?”.
tips and information
Getting there: American Airlines flies, for example, from Frankfurt am Main to Dallas or from Düsseldorf to Chicago (www.aa.com), from there Envoy Air flies to Rapid City for American. Delta flies from Frankfurt via Chicago and Minneapolis to Rapid City (delta.com).
Accommodation: “Microtel Inn by Wyndham”, double room, from the equivalent of around 142 euros (microtelinn.com). “The Rushmore Hotel”, from 88 euros per night for two people in a double room, up to 445 euros for the Yacuzzi Loft Suite. However, the house is fully booked until October (therushmorehotel.com). There are several lodges and cabins right in Custer State Park; from 200 euros with kitchenette and fireplace for up to four people (custerstatepark.com).
Information: realamerica.de, www.travelsouthdakota.com
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