Mount Rushmore South Dakota

This was a bit of an edited down visit to Mt. Rushmore, compared to our visit 7 years earlier.  We were at the actual park site for maybe an hour, as we were cramming things into our day long bus trip.  That was actually an appropriate amount of time, as they are working on some of the paths at the park....  and you really can't walk around as much as you usually can.

Still, we made the most of our time....  We went in and got our pictures, went to the visitor centers, etc.

The Fort Hayes people did provide a profession photographer at Mt. Rushmore.  For $20, she took a pic and we got an 8x10 and a 5x7.  She did a great job with the photos, finding the perfect spot and making sure no one was behind us.  Our picture would almost make you think we were the only people at the park!

At the gift shop, we were thrilled to see Nick Clifford- who was a driller on the sculpture!  We saw him last time and bought his signed book.  I bought another copy again this time.  it will be a gift for a friend.  He includes a signed baseball card of him with the book too!  I LOVE when the parks have people with direct links to the parks available!  Unfortunately, Nick passed away shortly after our visit.

After leaving the park, our bus driver, Reverend Bill, said that we had a little extra time so he took us all to see the profile of Washington.  There is a great place to pull over and see POTUS #1's side view.  It was pretty cool!

THEN, Bill started the mostly uphill drive, showing us
 all of the great views of Mt. Rushmore through the tunnels along the way.  We actually got out of the bus and took pictures in the first tunnel.  There was room for us and the cars and motorcycles through.  The tunnels would get MUCH smaller as we drove up the hill though!