Road Trip - Day 3

Day 3 of our road trip was the day we were most anticipating, and the biggest reason for taking this trip  - Mount Rushmore! Today was the day we were going to see it, so we were pretty excited when we started out.

The first thing we went to see was Crazy Horse memorial. It is essentially like Mt. Rushmore for the Native Americans. They wanted to memorialize one of their leaders on a mountain like we did with Mt. Rushmore. The major difference though, is that crazy horse is HUGE. Like, ENORMOUS. They began work on it in the 1950's, and the only thing that is finished is his face! I don't think they're ever, ever, ever going to be finished. It's pretty cool to see, but I'm not sure that anyone will be able to see it completed.

This is what the memorial will look like when it is finished. This replica is 1/32nd of the size of the real memorial. You can see how much work they have to go!

After seeing crazy horse, we headed to Keystone, South Dakota, to spend the afternoon so we could spend the entire evening at Mt. Rushmore. On the way to Keystone, we passed by a helicopter tour place, and we decided to be adventurous and take the helicopter tour of the Black Hills. This was one of the neatest experiences of the trip, for me anyway. To see the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse from the sky was something I'll never forget. I got to sit in the front, and it was really, really neat to be able to see Mt. Rushmore for the first time in my life as we flew around it in a helicopter. 

The beautiful Black Hills

My first view EVER of Mt. Rushmore

Crazy Horse from the sky. You can see the outlined tracing of his pointed finger.

I love that our pilot was even posing for this picture. :)

We ate lunch at Teddy's Deli in Keystone, and it was delicious.

One of the things that caught our attention in Keystone was a train that you could take that was used in 1880 - that's pretty old for transportation that still works. The ride would take you through the Black Hills to a little city called Hill City, and we decided to do it. The train was used all those years ago for mining purposes. The workers there were dressed up in old train uniforms, and they took our tickets and called "All Aboard" and everything. They were darling. It was nice and relaxing, and we learned some history of the Black Hills on the way. 

As a side note, there was a man sitting across from us on the train that was SOO grumpy. He was always complaining to the conductor about everything, and we just felt so sorry for him that he was so grouchy. He was all by himself, and we just kept wishing he could cheer up. He didn't though - the whole trip.

Aren't their little outfits cute??

I thought this little tidbit of info was really cool! I thought how proud Dave would be of me that I learned some trivia. But seriously - now I know why the train whistles always sound like that! 

After we rode the train, it was finally time to see Mt. Rushmore! It was the coolest site of the whole trip, for sure. It wasn't quite as big as I thought it would be, but it was still pretty massive. 

Side note - remember grumpy man from the train?? He was here too, just as grumpy as ever. Poor guy.

We heard there was a movie and a light show after the sun went down, so we decided to just hang around Mt. Rushmore for the evening until the show started. We ate dinner at their little cafe, and found out an interesting thing about Thomas Jefferson while we waited.

Apparently Thomas Jefferson was not only the author of the Declaration of Independence, but also of the first ice cream recipe in America! Because I am such an ice cream connoisseur, I had to get some. And seriously, it was delicious. They used his original recipe to make the ice cream they sold in their shop and it was some of the yummiest I have ever had. Thanks Thomas Jefferson!! 

YUM!!

Note: The guy in this video from Canada actually turned out to be kind of irritating. He wanted to chat the entire time about all of the pictures and places he'd been so far on his trip, and Mom was so stuck chatting with him that we had to bail her out by calling her and she had to pretend it was our brother Jeff. Sorry Canada man, but we could only look at so many pictures of mountain goats on your camera.

As the sun was going down, a lady came out to talk to us about Thomas Jefferson. She gave a nice little speech about him, and then the movie started. It was a little info about all of the presidents that were on the mountain - Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It was cool to learn a little bit more about them in the perfect setting. As the movie was finishing, the lights came on and lit up the mountain, illuminating their faces. It was so neat to see in real life. I was too enthralled with it all to take a video of it, so you'll have to take my word for it. It was cool!!

After the movie presentation and the lighting up show, the lady down front asked any past or present military personnel to come down and help her retire the flag. She had every single person up there state their name and what branch of the military they served in. This was one of the neatest parts of the evening for me. It was very humbling to be looking there at all sorts of people from all different walks of life who had given up part of their life and their time and their energy and spent time away from their families so that I could be protected and have the freedoms that I have. I was incredibly grateful to all of them for their service, and to see them all standing there was really neat. Then, we all sang the National Anthem together (which was totally cool in such an awesome setting), and I really felt so proud to be an American. Cliche, I know, but I felt such a sense of national pride staring up at the faces of 4 of our greatest presidents, singing the national anthem with all those military men and women looking on. It was a really cool experience, one that I hope I never forget.

Retiring the flag

The best picture I could get of the mountain lit up - the picture doesn't nearly do it justice, though.

Seeing Mt. Rushmore was absolutely incredible, and made every bit of long car rides and endless highways with nothing to see but corn TOTALLY worth it. I love America!!