World United States South Dakota Murdo

Bill and Lori's American Adventure - 2008

Mount Rushmore & The Badlands Mar 29, 2008

Mount Rushmore and the Badlands – Really great, enormous. The presidents’ faces carved on this mountain are from 150 years of history. George Washington (1st president), Thomas Jefferson (3rd president), Theodore Roosevelt (26th president) and Abraham Lincoln (16th president). The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum stated, “"A monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated. We are not here trying to carve an epic, portray a moonlight scene, or write a sonnet; neither are we dealing with mystery or tragedy, but rather the constructive and dramatic moments or crises in our amazing history." They started this project in October of 1927 and ended in October of 1941. When all tolled up in actual work hours it equaled about 6.5 years. It ended because of the death of Borglum. 90% of this monument’s carving was done by dynamite. It is really quite an accomplishment. Okay, enough of a history lesson. We headed off from there along I-90 and took the scenic byway through The Badlands. This was incredible. (I know you are getting tired of my endless expressions, but it is what it is) Once again the photos do not do this place justice. It was like driving through sand castles. There is 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires. After shooting about 100 photos (for every 100, 1 turns out) we continued our journey east. These parts were very prairie like, a whole lot of nothing for miles. We drove for a span of 25 minutes before we met another vehicle. This is where you can really make good time. The speed limit is 70 MPH. The whole area that we have travelled over the last couple of days was used as the backdrop for the movie “Dances with Wolves”, remember Kevin Costner? Bill was starting to suffer withdrawals from work so we stopped at a Lowe’s Home Centre and a Home Depot! We crossed over into Central Time Zone and settled for the night in Murdo, South Dakota. It is exactly due north of the place we stayed in while travelling out to Las Vegas. 482 kilometres today.

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