We first visited Mount Rushmore along with what seemed like half the population of the USA, what with the line of cars waiting to enter. It was a perfect storm. Yesterday there was a lot of fog and people were given passes to return today, along with this being Memorial Day weekend and a spectacularly gorgeous sunny day......if a tad windy.
Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed the visit. We learned a lot. What you see now is not what was originally planned by the architect and sculptor, Gutzon Borglum. He intended to portray the 4 presidents down to their waists, but died before completion, leaving only the heads which we now see. Nevertheless, it is still awesome as each face is 60 feet high. We took a trail which went along the base of the sculpture and looked up at them. Actually, Washington must have a cold because his nose looked a little stuffed. I'm sorry, I just realized I had not mentioned the names of the four men and the achievements they represent in the history of the country.
George Washington (birth)
Thomas Jefferson (growth)
Abraham Lincoln (preservation)
Theodore Roosevelt (development)
Moving on to another of the Black Hills, we came to the Crazy Horse Memorial which is still a work in progress. It is not funded by the government but rather by private sources, including Indians.
At the present time, the only part that can be seen is the head of Crazy Horse which is nine stories high. When complete, it will be 563 feet high and 641 feet long, the largest statue in the world. You will see a rendering of the planned completed carving at the end.
I found it interesting that both of these constructions are mostly done by specific, precision dynamite explosions.
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