Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial

After it started to rain in the Grand Tetons, we decided to head to Rapid City, South Dakota, to meet our other roommate, Kenny, on his way back to Portland. It was a long drive... We ended up getting stuck in construction for over an hour! We tried to make it to Devils Tower National Monument before dark, but we didn't make it. We did drive out to it, and even in the dark it is amazing. Hopefully someday we will make it back there in the daytime. None of our pictures turned out very good.

 We got into Rapid City pretty late so we got a hotel room with Kenny. The next morning we decided to head out early to check out Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial before Kenny had to leave. Just our luck, we ended up getting a flat tire on the way there.
We put on our spare though and continued on. Mount Rushmore is pretty dang cool! It's almost surreal to see it. This is Kenny and Josh in front of our presidents.

 They had a really informative museum and I thought this was a cool little tidbit about Mount Rushmore. They had some really cool movies and photos of the whole process. They changed a lot as they went along, moving faces and changing placement.

 This was the walk way into the monument. My dad would be so proud to know that Josh asked where the State of Jefferson flag was, with a smile of course.

 They have a very curvy road around the mountain and this was a cool profile view.

 After Mount Rushmore, we headed to Crazy Horse Memorial. It is still in progress but what a sight! It's huge!
We walked around and watched the very interesting movie about the monument. They will not take government money to help build the monument, only donations. So all the money they make from sales into the monument and from donation boxes is all they get!

 This a what it is going to look like someday. It was of course raining while we were there so they had to covered.

 They use a lot of dynamite to sculpt the mountain. The white chalk outline on the mountain is where the horse is going to be. They still have a lot of work, I hope it will be finished in my lifetime.

 "My lands are where my people lie buried." Crazy Horse


After we were done we went to get our tire fixed and it started to down pour! The three of us decided to give in and find a hotel for another night. We found a really great, and cheap, motel that overlooked Rapid City. Big Sky Motel. We spent the evening in the outside hot tub watching the city lights and far off lightening.

 The next morning Kenny left early and Josh and I thought we would drive out to Needled Road. We passed this Christmas Village and had to stop! So many ornaments!!

 This was a tiny tunnel along the road. That's Lola, my car. Yes I named her.

This was one of the pictures along the road. We ended up not going all the way through the park, there were down power lines and trees so we decided to head out to the Badlands!!