It was a butt-clenching rollercoaster ride on the Black Hills backroad to a park named for a man best-known for getting slaughtered.

Halfway up the twisting mountain road to the park, our journey became a Custerfluck of swollen rain clouds shrouding the granite peaks and deep green pines as we pinballed through hairpin switchbacks and one-lane tunnels. One tunnel perfectly framed the Rushmore four, frozen for eternity in the distance.

And that gang would show up in our windshield a dozen more times as we made our way to a work in progress.

It’s a bold spirit who knows his masterpiece won’t be completed before he dies. Four decades after his death, Korczak Ziolkowski’s vision of Crazy Horse slowly takes shape.