Interesting museum

After a slow start, we decided to go to the National Museum of Woodcarving. This museum is basically a showcase of Dr. Harley Niblack's work. Dr. Niblack was one Disneyland's first original animators. Over 70,000 hours of his life were spent carving miniature and life-size figures, miniature steam engines, paintings, furniture, etc. For more information, check out www.blackhills.com/woodcarving.

They also have Today's Woodcarvers but unfortunately, no one was working when we went through. They also have a beautiful gallery where 70 woodcarvers and artists offer "one of a kind" creations for sale. There were so many beautiful pieces. Thank goodness, we don't have the room or we might have purchased something.

Below are a few pictures showcasing Dr. Niblack's work. A number of his carvings include animation, that for the time, is quite impressive. The pictures just can't show the detail that went into each piece.

The picture below is of the Red Dog Saloon that depicts a shoot-out in the wild west.

The picture below depicts an early-day dentist office.

This picture depicts an 1880 ranch. This is Dr. Niblack's largest and most complex of the animated carvings. There is so much going on that it takes a while to take it all in.

Here is an illustration of some of his "simpler" woodcarvings. The pictures just don't do them justice.

The cost of the museum was $7.50 per person and is well worth seeing if you are ever in the Custer area.

We then took a drive to Legion Lake and ran in to Art and Connie. Since they moved to another campground, they have no phone service and had to get to a area where they had phone service as they had to make a couple of calls. Connie also said that she was going through Internet withdrawals. They use a phone card to connect but with no phone service, no Internet. We told them that Larry and Geri still had their space open.

Once we left there, we took a drive down highway 87 but the wildlife was scarce on the drive so we headed back to home.