Saturday, May 21, 2011

Our Cross Country Road Trip 2011: Mt. Rushmore





After our visit to Deadwood, South Dakota, we traveled on and stayed the night in Rapid City, South Dakota. The next morning we headed down through Keystone and on up to Mt. Rushmore. It was so foggy when we got there that we weren't sure if we would get a glimpse of the presidents or not, actually I didn't even know what direction to be looking for them it was so foggy. The attendent at the entrance told us that it had been this way the day before also, and had not cleared off until after 11 that day. We decided to chance it and take some time at the gift shop and book store first. The first stop at the book store/ranger station was fun. They had some great kid's history books, as well as some wonderful books of quotes from Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt and Jefferson. AND they even had a little hardback copy of the U.S. Constitution for sale as well! Next we headed up to the lodge and bought some cocoa and coffee. While we were drinking these and watching out the window for just a slight glimpse of even just one of those famous faces, the sky all of a sudden began to open up and slowly, minute by minute the fog began to clear away! God is so good to us!




Going....going....
going.....




GONE!



And the sun made an appearance too! Indeed, God is so good!



A closer-up view



Borglum: The mastermind behind Mt. Rushmore...





Garrett beamed Levi in the forehead with a snowball...you can't see the red circle, but you can see the drops of water still on his glasses. : D





Remember this walkway from 'National Treasure 2'?




A few other visitors that day




The beautiful lodge where we got some cocoa and coffee..




We saw these two mountain goats as we were leaving the Rushmore parking lot.



From Mt. Rushmore we headed down towards the Needles Highway, but since it had snowed the night before the highway was closed due to dangerous driving conditions.


I took this picture on the road between Rushmore and Needles.

4 comments:

  1. What fun!! This is an amazing trip, something my family hopes to do someday!

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  2. Oh Jennifer, I do hope you and your family are able to take that trip someday! It was such an amazing vacation - we saw and did so many things, but the crown jewel was definitely the Creation Museum! So worth the trip! ( :

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  3. Looks like a great time! Love seeing all the pictures. I didn't know that your parents went too. FUN! :)

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  4. Hey Jen! it was so much fun! The boys were thinking of yours the whole time - finding this and that to bring home to them! I am not sure how many things made it home though - ha ha! Every time we found souveniers that were personalized with names, the boys had to go through them to see if your boys names were there too! ( ;

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