Photographer Gary Warren, formerly of Los Alamos, on a road trip with his wife Marilyn, just spent about two weeks in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He spotted this young Lakota woman performing a hoop dance, which is all about her life. She is 23 years old and uses one hoop for each year so she is dancing with 23 hoops. The massive carving underway in the background is the Crazy Horse Memorial. The Lakota Indians wanted to honor one of their leaders so they hired a sculptor from Boston to carve this memorial image out of the granite mountain (like Mt. Rushmore but on a much grander scale). The sculptor began this monumental task in the 1940s and worked on it until he died in the 1980s. He had 10 children who have since taken over the project and after all of these years it is maybe 20 percent complete. There is a visitor center near the site with information about the tribe, the sculptor and his family. Photo by Gary Warren

What the Crazy Horse Memorial is expected to look like when completed. Photo by Gary Warren