Mount Rushmore National Memorial

Our visit to Mount Rushmore — long a bucket list item for us both — was cut short due to the large crowds of mostly non mask-wearing bikers visiting from nearby Sturgis. Since Koda wasn’t allowed up in the Memorial area anyway, we each took a turn going up to snap a few photos but then we quickly left. There was no way we were going to hang out in a large crowd even though it was outdoors. Anything indoors, like the gift shop and museum were absolutely out of the question. 

The Memorial itself was both striking and a little off-putting. Striking in that we had heard it was “just OK,” and not worth seeing again if you’d already seen it, so our expectations were low. But it was impressive! It was a little off-putting in that it was sculpted into the mountain as a tourist attraction. So it just felt a little unnatural. Can you imagine someone today suggesting that heads be sculpted into El Capitan at Yosemite? But there’s no denying that the enormous sculpture with its stately figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln bring visitors face to face with a history we all share. The 60-foot heads of the presidents are carved into a granite mountain with an elevation of 5,725 feet, all surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

To reach the Grand View Terrace, we walked down the Avenue of Flags, with the 56 flags representing the 50 states, one district, three territories, and two commonwealths of the USA. New Mexico’s yellow flag with the prominent Zia symbol was easy to spot.

We know there are many more viewpoints from which to capture dramatic photos. We will have to wait to get those until we come this way again (when we will also visit the Crazy Horse Memorial, which we put off due to the crowds).