Day 46 (Monday, August 9th) Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, & Wind Cave

Yesterday, we made camp and then drove up to Mount Rushmore to see the night show. We got there late in the afternoon and did a little sightseeing until dark fell. We'd been told that the night show was very impressive and we weren't disappointed. The show began with a movie about how the mountain was selected and the carving of the faces. We already knew (from our visit to Stone Mountain, Georgia earlier in our trip) that the sculptor that designed Stone Mountain also did Mount Rushmore. We also learned that one of the sculptor's apprentices here went on to do Crazy Horse, a nearby monument to the American Indian. The movie ended very patriotically and the lights slowly came up on Mount Rushmore as it drew to a close. Is was very inspiring to look up and see the light slowly increasing in intensity and revealing the monument above the movie screen. We all agree that the night show at Rushmore is not to be missed!

We came back the next day for a longer look at the monument. We drove up the Iron Mountain Road which was narrow and twisty, but offered amazing views of the monument as we got closer. In one place we had to drive through a one-lane tunnel that lined up perfectly with the monument in the background. In a few other places, the road actually circled over itself (called pigtails) in order to drop altitude quickly. When we arrived and got parked, we took the new walkway that lets you walk down and across the base of the memorial. We were actually able to get within a few dozen yards of the stone pile at the bottom of the mountain! The views were incredible! When Kim and I last visited Rushmore, the walk didn't exist and the completely new facilities weren't there either. They've done a wonderful job. It was so impressive that even 5,000 Harley Davidson motorcycles couldn't spoil it! The cycles literally blanketed the top levels of both garages, but the cyclists all seemed like reasonably nice people. We took what seemed like a million pictures and I got a massive crick in my neck from looking up at the monument as we walked below it. It was still very impressive by daylight and the new angles let you see it in a very non-traditional way!

After we left Mount Rushmore, we headed over to the Crazy Horse monument. This is a monument that will, when completed, be many times the size of Mount Rushmore and will be a 3-dimensional sculpture, in the round. It might even get finished in Jake and Tyler's lifetime. The builders have refused federal aid and a single family is doing most of the work. Regardless of its level of incompleteness, its still a remarkable undertaking! There were thousands of motorcycles there, too, so maybe that'll help their funding.

After we left the Crazy Horse Monument, we drove part of the Needles Highway. We'd thought that the Iron Mountain Road was twisty until we drove on Needles. We went through another one lane tunnel and in some places along the road there weren't even two full lane-widths! The switch-backs were so tight that I even managed to slip one back tire off the inside of the pavement, so we decided it was more of a car and motorcycle road and less of a big truck road. We decided to cut off from that road and head back over to the main road toward Wind Cave National Park.

At Wind Cave, we finally got some pace and quiet; there were only two motorcycles there and they weren't Harleys. We took a short tour of the caves (less than a mile of the 150+ miles they've discovered so far). Wind Cave got its name because it literally breathes in and out as it attempts to match barometric pressure with the outside world. That many miles of caves keeps the air flowing one way or the other. The caves are also famous for a couple types of formations that aren't seen anywhere else in the world. These caves weren't created by flowing water, but instead were created by the slow acidification of stagnant water that eventually left as the water-table dropped.

On the drive back to our campsite we drove through a prairie portion of Wind Cave National Park and were, once again, thrilled by having bison crossing the road only a few feet from our truck. We enjoyed the drive, but it was a long day and Holly was certainly glad to see us as we returned. Tomorrow, we'll head out toward the Badlands National Park!