Mt. Rushmore

We learned that the best time of day to see Mt. Rushmore was 9:00-12:00 in the morning.  That certainly isn't any trouble for our family. We drove down these teeny tiny tunnels and on these teeny tiny roads. In the motorhome.  The view was spectacular.  The drive was terrifying. I didn't get any great pictures of the view of the Black Hills. I was concentrating on not dying.  Even though I was in the passenger seat, I felt the need to concentrate.

Teeny tiny tunnel

 Teeny tiny road

We got our first glimpse of Mt. Rushmore as we were driving through our last tunnel.  It was so cool!  We tried to take a picture, but my little phone can not capture how amazing this was.  Especially since we didn't expect it at all.  Loved it!

Today was a perfect day to come here.  The weather was great.  There were hardly any crowds.  Josh's mom told me of their trip to Rushmore.  It was so cloudy they couldn't even see the mountain.  They had to stay an extra day to see it.  That was certainly not the case today. The sky was beautiful!

Apparently Thomas Jefferson invented ice-cream.  At least that is what the sign and shirt say.  Maysen got a shirt for Mr. Ochoa, her AP history teacher.  I also got one for Robyn, my visiting teacher.  She tells me all the time how Thomas Jefferson is her favorite president.  We also got ice-cream.  Stockton and Jorja got root beer floats with Thomas Jefferson's vanilla ice-cream recipe.

We walked through the Avenue of Flags to get to Mt. Rushmore.  Every state's flag is flying on their pillar telling when they were admitted to the United States.  We got pictures of everyone by the pillar of the state they were born in.

Stephanie & Mike ~ Utah

 Maysen & Stockton ~ Washington

 Eyes closed Jorja & Preston ~ Georgia

 I had to get another picture of Jorja by Georgia with her eyes opened!

 Preston wanted his picture taken in front of Utah

We finally made it to the lookout for Mt. Rushmore.  There is a small museum, a short film, seats to look at the mountain, a restaurant and several gift shops.  The weather was great and we were in no hurry, so it worked out nicely.

Stockton, Jorja, Preston, Stephanie, Maysen

 Stockton, Jorja, Preston

Stockton has to do this Windshield Geography assignment for his AP Geography class.  It is take a picture of himself next to some kind of geography.  I think this will work.

Stockton

 Mike enjoyed playing with the camera

 Stephanie & Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 Very bright, but you can see our eyes

 Now our eyes are in shadows.  One day we will spend the time

to figure out our camera.  Never seem to find the time.

 Mike, Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 Preston, Jorja, Maysen, Stockton

We walked up the presidential trail.  It wasn't long, but it was nice to have some kind of 'hike'.  The sculptor's studio was closed.  It has a scale model they used to carve Mt. Rushmore.  We were able to see George Washington in the window.  Mike took a picture of it and got Mt. Rushmore in the reflection.  He was trying to do that.  Maysen didn't think he could do it.  Mike was quite proud.

 George Washington's profile

 Stephanie & George Washington

Our next stop was Crazy Horse.  The monument is still being carved.  I can't believe one family is doing this.  When Mike and I were in France and touring cathedrals like Notre Dame, we talked about how crazy it was that people would work all their lives knowing they would not see the finished product.  You just don't see that kind of thing done today. I guess we were wrong.  Crazy Horse was started in 1947.  The sculptor (Korczak Ziolkowski) died in 1982 and seven of his children continue working on it.  He left detailed plans for them to use after his death. Wow.

Jorja, Stockton, Maysen, Preston @ Crazy Horse

Tonight the kids played on the playground, we had spaghetti and roasted peeps over the fire.  Mike showed me a perfect spot to roast a peep.  There was a little tunnel made of logs that my peep fit in.  I was concentrating so much on watching my peep that I didn't notice Mike blowing the fire right toward the spot he showed me!  All of a sudden my peep was on fire!  It surprised me and I pulled my stick out fast!  A little too fast as my poor peep's head was flung off; unfortunately for Mike it landed right on his head.  Flaming peep head.  Not what he was expecting.  He had to shower off the marshmallow goo out of his hair.