South Dakota

Whenever anyone asked me what is the one thing that I really, really wanted to see in America, my answer was always Mount Rushmore.  I don't know why exactly, it just seemed like such an iconic image of America, I felt like I had to see it while we were here.

Finally we had the opportunity on this trip to visit.  We were lucky that we had beautiful blue skies for our visit and it was reasonably quiet.  We walked the loop trail underneath the Presidents and visited the sculptures studio.  It was so interesting learning about the history and we were lucky enough to meet one of the Rushmore Workers that worked on the sculpture over 70 years ago!

 

 

From Mount Rushmore we went to see the Crazy Horse Sculpture which is only a few miles away.  The sculpture was started in 1948 and it still has a really long way to go before it will be completed.  

It is being funded from donations rather than any government money, hence it's taking so long to carve.  

Our next stop in South Dakota was Cosmos.  A weird place where gravity plays tricks on you.  The tour guide tells you how it's unexplained and is something cosmic about the place.  I didn't buy that and tried to figure out a rational explanation for it, I'm sure it's some kind of optical illusion but either way it's really fun.  It was hard to stand up sometimes, it felt like you were drunk and at other times it felt like you were standing up straight but to everyone else you were standing at an angle.

In the picture below it was possible to lean really far forwards so that you were almost flat but with your feet just on two blocks of wood.  I'm not looking convinced in the photo but I did manage to lean forward a lot further than it looks.

We were staying the night in Rapid City so we decided to go and check out the town later in the afternoon.  There is a president on every corner of downtown.  I managed to find one of my favourites - FDR.  

The next morning it was time to head to continue our journey across South Dakota but we made time for a must do stop on every road trip in this area - Wall Drug.  There are signs for miles on the highway advertising the free ice water and 5c coffee!  It's a weird place, its a huge drug store that sells all sorts of things and also has amusements.

The weather had been lovely for our whole trip so far and although it was still nice, it had suddenly turned bitterly cold so our next stop in Badlands ended up being a bit of a quicker stop than originally planned and it was more a bit of a drive through tour than a nice walk!

Our last stop in South Dakota was to a Minuteman Missile Silo.  We had visited a missile silo when we were in Arizona a couple of years ago but I had been too scared to go down and Chris had to go on his own.  This time I was determined to do it and I'm so glad that I did it was so interesting.  It was like walking back into the 80s.  Our tour was guided by one of the former missileers and there were only 4 of us on the tour so we were able to ask loads of questions.  I'd really recommend a visit here if you find yourself in the area.