Monday, June 21, 2010

Mount Rushmore

The week after school got out, we took advantage of no school for a whole week before Memorial Day (and thus fewer crowds) to visit Mount Rushmore and the surrounding sites.
The drive up was pretty miserable-- there was rain, hail, sleet and horrible wind.  We actually saw a semi that had been overturned by the high winds.  Luckily, the weather improved drastically for the days we were actually in Rapid City.  
Seeing Mt Rushmore was neat-- I had never been there before.  The kids enjoyed it for a few minutes, but were quickly ready to move on.  I was glad we managed to get in a tour group with a park ranger to explain about the carvings, the Presidents, and the man who took on the project.  Without it, I don't think the outing would have lasted very long.
We found out the people rappelling down George Washington's face were actually doing scans of the rock to test for stability.  Interesting.

2 comments:

taradon said...

What fun! We love South Dakota and used to go every summer. Reading you post reminds me that we haven't been in several years. We need to make a trip back there soon.

Tera said...

We've always talked about wanting to make it to Mt. Rushmore. Maybe one of these days we'll stop talking and start doing!