Saturday, August 15, 2009

Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse

8/10/09





We got new neighbors the other day. They are a family from northern Minnesota. They are horse people, because they brought 4 horse's. We didn't know there were horse campers. The camper carries the 4 horse's and bunks the mother , father and 3 kids. Pretty cool. You learn new things every day you are on the road. They are a strange family though. We say hi to them and they just look at us.


This is their horse camper.
We are going to Mt. Rushmore today. It's about time we see things that most kids have seen!

Drive to Mt. Rushmore. The Black Hills in South Dakota.




As we pull up to the gate, we see the Presidents. Weird looking cloud above Lincoln.
View as we enter inside of gates.
You see rocks like this all over the Black Hills jutting out of the ground.

We went on the President trail which is 240 stairs up. I had to make many rest stops. They had seat all the way up.
Almost all the way up we saw them hoisting stuff up on this pulley to the very top. They were doing maintenance on Mt. Rushmore.
Up up and away.

We are at the top of the trail. Look at all the boulders under the heads that were dynamited to make the stone statue.

I zoomed in. The bag of stuff is just at the top of Roosevelt's head.

Coming down the stairs we see the amphitheater, where people sit at night when they turn the lights on the statue and have fireworks. The ticket we bought today is good for a night visit, but it is a 30 minute drive at night in the mountains. Joe and I agree we like to be home before dark around here.

View of rocks on mountain as we came down.
Down at the bottom of the climb.
Sat and ate our sack lunch and watched the people. Met some people from Cedar Rapids, Ia. Small world.
One last zoom in. Do you see the pulley system on Roosevelt's head?
Leaving Mt. Rushmore. Do you see Washington.So many precarious looking rocks!
The slabs of rocks on the side of the road shine with the sun on it.

Off to Crazy Horse. See the Black hills.
Crazy Horse off in the distance.
Can you see him.
Twenty years of hard work.
Done by one man and his family, and no government subsidizing.
This is what it will look like when it is finished. It is being built by contribution and entrance fees only.

It had a great museum of the Lakota Indians. It also had a short film explaining who Crazy Horse was and why this monument is being built.



On the way home we saw this motorcycle at the gas station.

back view.

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