American Adventure

South Dakota (Rushmore, Crazy Horse)

Thank you to Fred & Ivy Gali of Spearfish, SD

Starting on August 04, 2002, 5:06:52 PM

It started raining on this day so my Aunt and Uncle offered to take me to a few of the sights. Not too far down the road we got to see Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument. Well, sort of.

There close to Mt. Rushmore is the small town of Keystone, now pretty much a tourist town. The bikes, as they were in every town were dotted along side the streets leaving little or no room for cars to park.

Mt. Rushmore was there. The rain clouds had lifted for the drive down but as soon as we got to the monument the clouds had covered the area. Still very visible I was able to get some pictures of the huge sculptures. Blasted in the hard granite surface of this mountain are the four presidents' faces. An amazing feat this must have been.

All kinds of people were there from all over. Of course, hundreds of bikers taking advantage of the area's attractions while they were there. Not to mention the nice winding highways and hills and mountains in the area make for some really fun riding.

Zooming in to capture more of the detail you can see the individual faces much clearer.

I do have much larger and more detailed versions of all of these images that I plan to post when I have the time and high speed connection. Please keep an eye out for when I do post them.

It was interesting to look at the many rock formations around the area that displays what they were working with when building the monument.

There at the entrance to the park was rows of flags. One of each of the 50 states. I started to take pictures of each one to add to my collection and post on my site but it would have taken quite a bit of time to get a good shot of each one and waiting for it to open. Besides, the clouds were coming in and we still wanted to move on the see the Crazy Horse monument a little further south.

On around the corner there's a little spot where you can see just the side of George Washington's face from below.

Well here it is, the Crazy Horse monument. What do you mean, you don't see anything? Its right there behind that cloud.

Okay, so I cheated and took a picture of a picture to give you an idea of what I was hoping to see. I had been there back in 1992 and see n the monuments but it was not quite to the stage it is today. At least they have the front of the face carved out pretty good. Still a major work in progress this monument should turn out to be an incredible sight to see. Even more so than it is now.

Standing in front of a large 1/34th scale, plaster statue was this young biker to be.

On back towards Spearfish we made a quick stop in Lead, SD to look off into the edge of an old mining facility. Quite an amazing hole in the ground that seemed to just keep going down.

While I was there a small local wanted to have her picture taken. A very friendly Siamese, this little girl wanted to go home with me. I had to decline as I had no room on my bike for any more passengers. Me and all my personalities are quite enough.

Around town were numerous reminders of a time long gone. With all kinds of mining equipment the whole town was a museum of its own.

Some of the old houses around the area were quite impressive as well. This one here just seemed to stand out.