When we stopped at Bear Country, USA, we were on our way to Mt. Rushmore!

When my parents came in here in 1979, apparently you couldn’t get very close to the presidents. Since then, a lovely new visitor’s center and amphitheater have been built!

You can actually see the carving quite well from this observation deck — the photos make it seem like we are farther away than we actually are:

I learned some interesting things about Mt. Rushmore at the visitor’s center, especially about the significance of which presidents were chosen. This is from an explanatory sign:

The four American presidents carved into the granite of Mt. Rushmore were chosen by the sculptor to commemorate the founding, growth, preservation, and development of the United States. They symbolize the principles of liberty and freedom on which the nation was founded. George Washington signifies the struggle for independence and the birth of the Republic; Thomas Jefferson, the territorial expansion of the country; Abraham Lincoln, the permanent union of the States and equality for all citizens; and Theodore Roosevelt, the 20th century role of the United States in world affairs and the rights of the common man.

On the drive away from Mt. Rushmore, there’s an area where you can pull over to see this:

Right around the bend from the profile view, we saw a mountain goat!

After that, it was on to the Crazy Horse Memorial:

Are you guys familiar with the Crazy Horse Memorial? I’m a little ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know it existed until recently. It’s a fascinating story; basically, in the 1940s, several Native American elders (most prominently Chief Standing Bear) in the Lakota tribe invited (white American) sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski (who had worked on Mt. Rushmore) to design and execute a memorial to the prominent Lakota leader Crazy Horse. Korczak started carving that mountain with a single jackhammer. He lived at the mountain and worked on it every day, alone, until his ten children were grown up enough to help him. Korczak died in 1982, but his family continues the work on the sculpture and memorial; the entire project is funded by admissions and the like. Anyway, it’s an absolutely incredible story, and the whole experience of seeing the progress on the memorial so far was truly inspirational. We took a bus trip through the work zone (they’re still working actively on the carving, and the best way to carve a mountain is to blow it up — systematically, of course!) so we could go to the base of the mountain:

Crazy Horse’s face was completed in 1998 (after Korczak’s death); since then, lots more people have gotten interested in the project and visited the site. With the increased interest and the technological advances in the mountain-blasting arena, it’s completely possible that the work that Korczak started completely by himself could be finished within the next few decades. It’s a very worthy cause, so I encourage you to consider making a contribution if you have the means!! The finished sculpture is going to look like this:

The completed project is going to be 641 feet wide by 563 feet high; Crazy Horse’s head is going to be 87 feet high (the heads of Mt. Rushmore are only 60 feet high). Shew!

After Crazy Horse, we drove back to Rapid City. We encountered several deer on the way:

They are really everywhere out here. I kind of wish we had gotten Pearl those deer whistles, but hopefully we will be okay. I guess if she had deer whistles, we wouldn’t get to enjoy seeing them on the side of the road…

On our way back, we had to get a closer look at something we had seen from the road when we were heading towards Mt. Rushmore earlier that day:

If you think that is a giant bust of President Reagan in front of a miniature Washington Monument flanked by giant busts of Presidents G.W. Bush and JFK… you’re absolutely right. What?! Turns out this random roadside um… artwork… is kind of a teaser site to get you to go to President’s Park, which apparently includes giant busts of all 43 presidents. And guess what? It’s close to our next destination: Deadwood, S.D.! We can’t wait!!

All right. So, after enjoying mini-President’s Park, we returned to Rapid City (officially, “The City of Presidents”). We had dinner at The Corn Exchange, which was excellent. Now we’re back home in our Motel 6, resting up and rebuilding strength so we can forge ahead tomorrow. We’re both feeling much better and are looking forward to our next adventure!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is filed under 2008 USA Road Trip.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.