Day 13: Mount Rushmore

We left around 9:30 am to do a quick visit of Mount Rushmore before getting on the road for our long drive (about 6 hours) to De Smet, South Dakota.

We were lucky that it wasn't too crowded. It only cost our entire RV $5 to get in to Mount Rushmore because my parents are seniors. I didn't expect if to be so inexpensive. When we walked in, there was a woman next to a map of the world who asked us to write our name on a little sticker and put it on the map showing were we were from. We were the first people from Chicago today, which she said was pretty remarkable. We walked through the avenue of flags and took lots of pictures. We quickly walked through the museum and watched the 15 minute movie about the history of Mount Rushmore. One thing I learned is that most of the carving of the faces was achieved by blasting the rock with dynamite.

Mount Rushmore, just like Crazy Horse Memorial, is not without its controversy. The Sioux people believe the monument should be taken down because it was built on land that was taken away from them. Other Native Americans feel that the monument should stay but be used as a way to teach visitors about the true history of what happened.

Ellie stayed in the RV because she did not feel comfortable viewing a monument honoring presidents (Washington and Jefferson) who owned slaves, built on ancestral land taken over by the US government and created by a sculptor (Gutzom Borglum) who had known ties to white supremacy groups. She certainly had a lot of valid reasons for staying in the RV. I felt that it was a teachable moment for the children so I chose to go see it.

In case you have always wondered why it is called Mount Rushmore, it was named for a man named Charles E. Rushmore, a lawyer who traveled to the Black Hills for check titles for mining companies in 1885. According to his letter that is quoted on the National Park Service Website, "I was deeply impressed with the Hills, and particularly with a mountain of granite rock that rose above the neighboring peaks. On one occasion while looking from near its base, with almost awe, at this majestic pile, I asked of the men who were with me for its name. They said it had no name, but one of them spoke up and said 'We will name it now, and name it Rushmore Peak.' "

We got to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead in De Smet, SD, where we would be parking our RV for the night around 7:15 pm. The homestead is a basically a living museum that also has four RV spots, some tent spots, and a few wagons that you can also sleep in.

There are technically nine books in the Little House series. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote seven different books about her life growing up in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, and South Dakota. She also wrote a book about her husband growing up in New York before moving to the Dakota territory and also a book about her married life in De Smet that her daughter Rose helped finish for her after her death. Five of her books actually take place at least partially in De Smet, where she lived for five years.

We drove into town to eat dinner and ended up at a DQ/Subway. It wasn't the fanciest dinner for our final real night of our RV adventure, but it was fast and they had outdoor picnic benches.

We got back to the homestead just as the sun was finished setting. We took our flashlights and explored the property as best as we could in the dark. We came upon a little hay roof barn that was swarming with kittens. There were at least seven kittens we could see crawling on the roof and on the ground nearby and a skinny mommy cat. Several of the kittens were very friendly and wanted to chase us and play with us. We would have stayed all night if there hadn't been so many bugs.

We went back to the RV and played cards and went to bed. Before bed, I read a few pages of the book, By the Shores of Silver Lake , to the boys. This is technically the fifth book in the Little House on the Prairie series, but it is the first book to take place in De Smet, where we were, so I wanted to read it to the boys. We also brought the book on CD, but when we tried to listen to it in the RV no one could hear it very well. We also had the book so I ended up reading it as we drove (thank you Dramamine for allowing me to read without getting carsick). Just as we arrived in De Smet, I read the line where Laura's sister Carrie asks Pa what the town they will homesteading in is called and Pa says, "De Smet, named after a French priest." Perfect timing.

Before bed, I read the boys the part in the book where the family is living above their father's store in town, which wasn't finished yet. They went to sleep one night in April and woke up covered in snow because the ceiling was full of cracks.

When we went to bed the wind started to howl rather fiercely. I woke up about two hours later because the entire RV was shaking in the wind. There was a huge banging sound that kept me awake for quite a while. I thought it was the ladder and I was too scared to go outside to check because it was so windy. Finally, after an hour of not sleeping I lifted the shade and realize that it was the window that was banging against the RV. This window is actually an emergency window that has a latch, but it had someone come unlatched. I realized then that Luca and Alex were covered in dust that had blown in from the windstorm outside. It was rather fitting to be on the Ingalls Homestead where the elements entered our window and were covering my kids, just like the snow covered the Ingalls girls in the book.

I tried to sleep after that, but it still wasn't easy because I kept imagining a twister picking up up our RV and carrying it away.