Here are all the cousins, minus Kristine who was at work. I mentioned our cousin Laura came to visit...she flew up with her daughter Izzy from Houston.
We did not get as far as we had hoped, so stopped close to the Illinios/Iowa border. Turned out the little town we stopped in was having their fireworks show that night and we were just in time. They started as we pulled up and we had a unhindered view! There were even some other kids in the parking lot who shared their sparklers with the boys.
The next day seems like we spent most of the day in Iowa. Never take a lesser known road through Iowa. I missed a turn coming out of Cedar Rapids (not sure if I was distracted with construction or the chaos in the car) but I think it cost us over an hour. It was a beautiful drive. With recent flooding, the locals could not even tell me for sure how to get across to I-35. So we meandered and eventually found our way. (I for some reason did not have a map in the car and have not yet gotten into the smart phone stuff). We stopped at a park outside of Sioux Falls, SD to meet with some friends for an hour and then continued further west - destination unknown.
As I started getting tired, we stopped in the middle of nowhere South Dakota. I had to laugh...
Outside the door was a folding chair and a plastic coffee container, holding ashes. Then inside, there is a note on the mirror that says: "Attention hunters. No mud, paw or footprints on carpet. No dogs on the bed! Do not leave dogs alone in rooms unless in a kennel. No cleaning birds in tubs, sinks or anywhere in the rooms." Then on the room fridge it says "Please don't put pheasants in the fridge or freezer." Guess this place is a hunters paradise. The lady who owns this place cooks a hot breakfast every morning and then has it out in crock pots. She even asked me what I thought my boys would like. We ended up with english muffin sandwiches and cinnamon rolls.
Next stop on the 5th was Mount Rushmore. Man, have things grown up around there. Granted, I have only been there one other time and it was probably 20 years ago. I was not prepared for all the growth, commercialism, tourist type feel of the place. (I was even surprised how huge Mitchell, SD was - the home to the Corn Palace. There is now a Cabela's there and that town is thriving.)
The boys were really impressed with Mount Rushmore. I was not feeling good so we did not walk around and explore too much, but we did see the museum, watched the 14 minute film and the boys loved running around the amphitheatre. They wanted to go on a couple of the trails, but I told them we would come back another time (it is only about 6 hours).
Here is the first picture we took - I was overwhelmed with the people and busyness. I was not sure what kind of pictures we would get later, so took this one.
We walked down and found the amphitheatre. The boys loved running up and down the steps. I kind of wished there had been a choir group of some sort that would have started singing. Would love to hear the acoustics.
I quizzed B before we got there as to who was on the mountain. He got them right - I always forget Thomas Jefferson.
I had to basically lay on the ground to get this shot...but love that they are just below the faces.
We saw this goat on our way out and was laughing at all the comments about how mangy he looked. He was not afraid of people!
I would love to see it at night time. Am considering a trip in the fall when the crowds die down. There are so many other things to do. They have a high ropes course, zip line and alpine slide that the boys really wanted to do. However, they were not being very obedient at the time, so we passed. Plus it would have made it hard because they were not all big enough and me being the only adult I could not be in 2 places at once.
I wanted the stop to be educational too, so we looked up some facts about Mount Rushmore.
The heads are 60 feet tall, nose is 20 feet long, eyes are 11 feet across and mouth is 18 feet wide. It cost just under $990,000 to build and took 17 years - start to finish. Washington was chosen because he represents the struggle for independence, Jefferson because he represents the idea of government by the people, Lincoln because he represents equality and permanent union of the states and Roosevelt for the role of US in world affairs. It took 400 workers and no one died during the building of it. Borglum had become so good using dynamite, that most (90%) of the rock was precisely blasted and only inches had to be chiseled by hand. Jefferson was originally on Washington's right but after 18 months, it was not working so they blasted him off and put him on Washington's left. One last thing that I did not know was....
"Some people, including the U.S. Supreme Court, think the U.S. stole the Black Hills.
In 1868, long before the carving began, the U.S. government promised in a treaty to let the native Sioux Nation tribes keep the Black Hills, including the Rushmore area. But in 1874, gold was found in those hills (and confirmed by Lt. Col. George Custer). After that the U.S. government and prospectors grabbed the land back and forced the Lakota elsewhere.
On July 23, 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court found that land grab was unconstitutional and ordered federal compensation of more than $105 million to the Sioux to settle the case -- but Indian leaders said no, they'd rather have the Black Hills. Writing in 2007, Oglala Lakota Sioux journalist Tim Giago estimated that the unclaimed federal payment, counting interest, had grown to more than $757 million." (taken from LA Times article)
Definitely a trip we will be making again!
We arrived home that night around 9pm.
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