Black Hills, South Dakota

Aug 20, 2012

Flying from Custer State Park Airstrip, South Dakota.

These are the Black Hills, once the home of the Lakota Indians.
The area had been allotted to the Indians as their final reservation, but then gold was discovered here, so the Indians were forced out, which eventually lead to the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Still the home of some buffalo herds.

But this is more symbolic of the plight of both the buffalo and the Indians these days.
Neither are free to graze and hunt their former lands,
 and both are now being fed from troughs......

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This is the Black Hills these days, totally tourist.......

I couldn't fly around these monuments due to all the tourists and the rangers watching.

But I did fly around the Crazy Horse Monument under construction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_Memorial

Some more badlands erosion near the Black Hills

This structure was on Indian lands east of the Hills.
It must be very impressive inside that building.