Forever West

Yesterday we started out bright and early to see one of the greatest American monuments: Mount Rushmore. Seeing something in person that I’ve seen so many times in textbooks and pictures is actually sort of surreal. The faces of the four American presidents sit high up on top of a cliff, smaller to look at than I had imagined, but still a startling size when you first see them. We hiked half a mile up to them and stopped in the Sculptor’s Studio and listened to a speaker tell us the history of Mount Rushmore, some of which I must share with you because it is so interesting:

The idea of Mount Rushmore was conceived by some guy, simply because he wanted to increase tourism in the Black Hills. The idea was originally meant to sculpt American heroes, but when the guy hired sculptor Gutzon Borglum to carve out the faces, he instead decided to do four prominent presidents. The rock into which the faces are carved started off as completely flat. Borglum actually invented a projector that was so big that it could project an outline of the faces from the ground all the way onto the rock, and the workers outlined in white paint. Jefferson was supposed to be on Washington’s right side, our left, and they had even started carving his face, but they then hit a huge crack in the rock that prevented them from sculpting anymore (you can still see the crack). They blew up all that they had done, and put Jefferson where he is today. 90% of the sculpting was done by dynamite, and the other 10 % was done by workers who sat on what looks like a wooden swing with a two-inch wide leather back to it, who hung from a cable the size of one’s pinky finger from the top of where the heads are today. They used what look like today’s jackhammers. Behind Washington’s head are hundreds of stairs and a small workhouse. Each worker was provided with a respirator, and there was not one fatality in all of the 14 years that Mount Rushmore was being built. Lincoln and Washington were originally meant to have coats and hands, but when Borglum died, his son did not want the project to go on without him, and declared Mount Rushmore finished. To give you an idea of the size, Lincoln’s nose is 20 feet long. The faces are as smooth as “the smoothest sidewalk you’ve ever walked on” according to the park ranger, and they have only been cleaned once, in 2005, with water pressure.

Sorry that was so long! I just thought all of that was really fascinating. Mount Rushmore was one of my favorite stops so far. We continued to drive through the Black Hills, where there were lookout points that were stunning. We had to drive through a number of caves on the scenic Needle’s Highway, and saw Needle’s Eye, a rock known for it’s unusual shape. We then drove through Custer National Park, where, much to my delight, we got to drive past fields of grazing buffalo, not fenced in, completely in their natural habitat. One came as close as ten feet to us. They are ridiculously big- they can get up to 6 feet high and weigh one ton- and can outrun a horse. It was amazing. I now love buffalos.

We also went through Deadwood, which is a famous town from the early 1800’s, and while it is still set up like one would imagine an old western town, but now it is all casinos and bars.

This morning, after Amy and Tricia changed our car oil themselves (we’ve put over 2000 miles on this baby!), we drove to Devil’s Tower, most famous for being in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” It’s crazy how this huge rock formation (made from an upsurge of molten rocks) is just in the middle of nowhere, rising up over the fields. It’s an especially sacred spot for Native Americans, and their story for it is pretty interesting: seven sisters were playing when a huge bear started chasing them. They could run fast enough, so they climbed on top of a rock and prayed to it to have mercy on them. The rock began to grow, higher and higher, and the bear clawed at it, resulting in the rock patterns along the sides of the Tower. The Tower rose so high that it vaulted the girls into the sky, where they remain, the Seven Sisters, or the modern day constellation Pleiades. Pretty neat stuff. We hiked a mile around the Tower and saw some crazy mofos climbing it, without anything pulling them up (they just use a rope in case they slip).

At one point we came to another lookout, far over a vast area of land with a winding river going through it and grassy hills in the background. One of the best things out here is that the lands are almost completely untouched, and as childish as this sounds, I swear you can look out onto some of these hills and plains and see the Native Americans and/or settlers just riding across the field. It’s just easy to picture. People out here preserve their natural lands incredibly well. The fine for littering is $750.

I have more to say, but this is quite long already, so I’ll save it until later. Thanks again if you are reading this.