We left the hotel just before 8am this morning but had to melt the ice off the windscreen before we could go anywhere. We arrived at Mt Rushmore within 10mins. There weren't very many people around at that time. We hired the audio tour wands and made our way to the viewing area.
The monument is quite amazing to see. The audio tour gave us a lot of information about the building of the monument, the sculptor and his team. Nearly 400 people worked on the sculpture. It was started in 1927 and finished in 1941. The sculptor was an established artist named Gutzon Borglum who had the vision to carve 4 presidents into the mountain.
The presidents chosen were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
Underneath the main viewing area is a visitor's centre where we watched a short film about the building of the monument and read information about the building and the preservation of the monunent. The faces are carved into granite which can expand and crack if water freezes in cracks and crevices. It is closely monitored for cracks.
After finishing there we walked along the President's Trail which is a walking track that loops around and took us a bit closer to the presidents. There were lots of stops on the trail to listen to the audio information. Towards the end of the trail we came to the old Sculptor's Studio. In there we saw the artist's scale model of the monument. Every inch on the model represented 1ft on the mountain. Everything had to be measured so precisely. The faces are approx 60ft tall. The noses alone are 20ft long each. It is hard to get the size of it when there is nothing to measure it against. It was incredible to hear that 90% of the work was done by dynamite blast.
Borglum had to change the design many times due to cracks and rock instability. He died in April 1941 but the monument wasn't completed until October 1941. It is sad to think he didn't see it finished. His son Lincoln, who had been working on the project since age 13, took over and saw it through to completion.
We were lucky to have a blue sky as the backdrop. The day warmed up considerably. It was the first time short sleeves were suitable since we have been here.
We visited the gift shop and found a man called Nick Clifford was there signing his book. He had worked on Mt Rushmore, starting in 1938 when he was 17yrs old. His book is a series of Q&A, answering the questions Nick gets asked most often. I'm sure it will be an interesting read.
We left Mt Rushmore just before 11.30am and headed for Crazy Horse. This is the American Indian version of Mt Rushmore but far more ambitious.
Chief Standing Bear asked a sculptor by the name of Korczak Ziolkowski to carve Crazy Horse (an influential Indian) into another of the Black Hills. He started the project in 1948 at age 40. For the first 7yrs he worked alone. The project is far from completion. The head, which is the only part finished, is over 87ft high. It has taken over 50yrs to get to it's current state and there is far more work still to be done. Korczak died in 1982 so his wife and 7 of their 10 children took over the project. I doubt it will be finished in their lifetime. Crazy Horse isn't as impressive as Mt Rushmore, probably because there is still so much to do.
After leaving Crazy Horse we headed down the mountain to Rapid City. I had read about the Dinosaur Park on the internet and we saw the sign to it on the way in yesterday. It was easy to find. We were starving by then and very glad to see the visitor's centre had a cafe but all they had were burgers and nuggets. We had a burger which was really quite nice. After climbing up an huge amount of stairs, we reached the dinosaur park. It was pretty disappointing-just 4 dinosaur statues. We didn't hang around and decided to head back to Keystone to go on the old steam train we had seen advertised.
On the way back we stopped outside Bear USA-another drive through wildlife park-where we could see mooses through the fence. We took a photo for prosperity. Further along we could see the baby bears and Rob managed to snap a picture of a baby grizzly from a distance.
We also stopped at the Christmas Village which advertised having over 10 000 ornaments. They absolutely do and most of them were crap. There were ornaments for fishing, ballet, cupcakes, cheerleading and hundreds of other things that should never be seen near a Christmas tree.
When we got back to Keystone we found the steam train only went twice a day as it is a 3hr round trip. We had missed both.
Ever since I was a child I have wanted to have an old fashioned photo done. There is a shop right here in Keystone and as we had time to spare, I had one done. I said I wanted a long dress and a hat with feathers. The lady picked things out for me and chose a formal setting for me. She took about 6 photos-with a feather boa, with a fan and with a gun. For each prop she took one with a smile and one serious. I had plenty to choose from. It was a bit of fun. After we picked up the photo we went up to the other end of town to see what was there. There wasn't much there that was open. It is amazing to think that most of the businesses here-shops, restaurants and hotels-close down over winter. The photo lady told us she closes at the end of Sept and won't reopen until May. It was the same in Cody. I wonder how they survive??
This evening we went back to Mt Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. It started at 8pm with a 10min ranger talk. Then there was a 20min movie about American history and the part the honoured Presidents played in that. At the end of the movie the audience was asked to stand for the Star Spangled Banner. That is such a hard anthem to sing! It goes too high and the general public struggle to get there. During the anthem the Presidents were lit up. I think they looked better in the daylight. The lights were orange and not strong enough in my opinion. After the anthem, the ranger invited all veterans to go on to the stage. There were about 70 people who went down. The ranger chose 6 of them to do the flag lowering ceremony. It was finished once the flag was down and folded. It was interesting to see the evenings procedures and ceremonies.
We are aiming for another early start tomorrow as it is about a 6hr drive through to Sioux Falls.