Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore is a must see if you are visiting the black hills of South Dakota.  How crazy and awesome is it that 4 peoples busts are carved into the side of a mountain?  I think the four of our heads might look kind of cool on the mountain.  What do you think?  Not so much?

Okay, here's a photo of the Presidents unobstructed by our smiling faces (for the record, the above does in fact depict Derek's smiling face--for photos anyway).

When we got to Rushmore I had three main questions....

Why? "The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt." Gutzon Borglum (the memorial sculptor/designer)

How long did it take? 1927 - 1941 (14 years)

How in the heck do you carve faces into a mountain? 90% was accomplished via strategically placed dynamite.  Once there was 3 to 6 inches of granite left to remove they used drills to "honeycomb" or weaken the surface to remove the granite by hand.  And finally it was smoothed out using hand tools, including something called a bumper tool.  Workers had to climb 700 stairs to get to the top and then were suspended by steel cables in front of the 500 foot face of the mountain.  Imagine doing that as your day job?  Click here to read more.



Our first view of Rushmore from the road on the ride up



A view up GW's nose from a crevice at the bottom of the mountain



I think it might have been kind of nice if they carved Lincoln wearing his famous hat!

Random fun fact: Not only was President Jefferson the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, he was also the creator of the first ice cream recipe in America.  At least according to this sign...

Touring Rushmore and it's museum provided a lot of other interesting information on how this monumental feat was achieved.  It's every bit as impressive as it looks.  You'll have to make a visit to South Dakota to check it out!  (Or consult the internet.)

Up next on the blog is our Needles Highway Ride.  You'll have to stay tuned until Monday for it though.  I figured I would take the weekends off from posting. ;)

Happy Friday!