Day 23

Thursday, October 2

Woke to a beautiful morning.   Cold, crisp, clear, windy. Very nice change!

Drove out to Mount Rushmore.    The Black Hills are beautiful.

Thankfully, the US Park Service has a fairly large area of land around the Memorial so the approach is fittingly serene and beautiful.    Dogs are not allowed inside the pedestrian gates so I remained with Stella while Linda entered, visited the museum, and took photos.  I'd been inside a number of years ago.

Link to Mount Rushmore wiki page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore

Did you know the original 4 figures on the mountain were planned to be Lewis, Clark, Chief Red Cloud, and Buffalo Bill?     Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, changed the subjects to get more support.

Those who love old movies will remember the chase across the faces in Hitchcock's North by Northwest.      Completely fabricated and was not filmed at the Memorial.   But...memorable.

While leaving, we headed north toward the Crazy Horse Memorial and took this photo of George Washington in profile.

As all know, the Crazy Horse Memorial is a work in progress and is totally private....no government involvement.    It is 3 things:  a huge monument to a man and tribal people, a museum of North American tribal culture, and a school.  

Look closely and you'll see the horse's head painted on the rock in the lower right.   Ears sticking up, head tilted very far forward past vertical.    It will require many more years of work to complete.

The nonprofit has an extensive web site at:

http://crazyhorsememorial.org/frequently-asked-questions/

We headed back to Rapid City for a 2d night and will make tracks east tomorrow.   Is good that we did our sightseeing in the morning because a distinct cold front has arrived with cold, wind, and rain.  Looks like it will be with us most of the way home.    Should be a tailwind, a blessing!

Linda Adds:  It was a lovely morning visiting two sights I have always wanted to see.  Mount Rushmore was all I expected, very beautiful, with a nice museum area.  Visiting children, especially the little boys, very quite taken with the explosion simulator which allowed them to hit the "plunger" and on the screen, old footage of demolition coincided with a nice boom!

The Crazy Horse monument is a project under construction.  The original sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, had worked on Mount Rushmore with it's sculptor, Gutzon Borglum.  He worked alone for several years and then was assisted by his ten children, seven of which still run the private foundation and everything from the site and continued sculpting to the gift shop.  The museum of indian materials is quite interesting and also worth the visit.

The afternoon weather blew in with a vengance, making both Stan and I very happy to be in our little camper.  Watched an interesting program put on the South Dakota tourism.  Did you know that Rapid City is home to a lovely replica of Independence Hall complete with Liberty Bell out front?  It was closed when we went by but houses a replica of the signers of the Constitution with information about each of these men.  Downtown, interspersed on several business streets are life size statues of all U.S. Presidents to date.

Martin Van Buren, 8th President