We started the day in Rapid City and our first stop was Mount Rushmore. I think if we were to do this trip again we would stay at Keystone. It is closer to Mt. Rushmore and seemed like a cool little town. Rushmore was far and away the highlight of the day. I'm sure between Sue and me we took over 100 pictures. To really appreciate the beauty, you need to be here. From Rushmore we went south to Custer State Park, then to the statue in process of Chief Crazy Horse and finally took route 385 north through Deadwood (where Wild Bill Hickok was buried) and on to Spearfish were we decided to spend the night. Tomorrow we will see Devil's Tower and starting making our way north and west to Glacier National Park.
Mile 1188 - Mt. Rushmore
I think for those of you who like operations, you would like Mr. Borglum. He found the right mountain to do these sculptures. He created plaster models of each president who were placed on the mountain so the workers could "feel" how the faces of the presidents and to translate those to the mountain. Finally,Mr Borglum had his studio at the foot of the mountain where he had a scale model of the final product he could gage the work being done on the mountain. The project, by the way, was completed by Mr. Borglum's son who also completed this statue of his dad. There's a whole other story about how they decided who should sculpted here, but you need to find that out.
The weather was cloudy when we first arrived but cleared nicely so I was able to take this shot (along with about 30 more).
Why, you might wonder, did we take a picture of Lincoln? Actually this was Mr. Borglum's favorite president. He did a sculpture of Abe that currenty is in the Capital. One of the Lincoln family members said this was the best likeness of Abe they had ever seen.
Mile 1208 - Custer StatePark
This park is not far south of Mt. Rushmore. It's a huge and beautiful area. We probably spent a couple of hours driving around. For any of these places you could easily spend days.
We saw two herds of buffalo. We were able to get closer to this one. They advised us to be careful not to get too close. In this picture there was a park ranger with a "whip" presumably for the buffalo. Oh yea, there were signs up not to rollerskate!
Lots of antelope throughout the park. They were a little harder to get close to.
In the spirit of the Democratic National Convention, this picture seemed appropriate. You can add your own names for these animals or make up your own stories. By the way, they were also in the park.
Mile 1256 - Statue of Chief Crazy Horse
This is a few miles north of Custer, South Dakota. As you know, this is a "work in progress".
Mile 1304 - Deadwood
Sorry we didn't take any pictures. Notable here is the grave of Wild Bill Hickok. A nice town along a beautiful valley. At this point in the day, we were starting to get tired and decided to spend the night at Spearfish.
It's hard to believe we started our trip four days ago and haven't yet started the "meat & potatos" part of of our trip. We feel so fortunate to be able to do this and at the same time stay connected to our families.
The Travelers
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