Day 4: Rapid City, SD to Yellowstone National Park, WY via Mt. Rushmore and Bighorn National Forest
Mileage: 486 miles
View Larger Map
The thunderstorms of the previous evening had cleared the way for a gorgeous, sunny, warm morning in Rapid City. We had a quick breakfast at the Econo Lodge in this second-largest city in the state of South Dakota. The city got its name from Rapid Creek, on which it was established in 1876 by an influx of settlers shortly after gold was in discovered in the Black Hills region. Interestingly, the Sioux people have been waging a long legal battle to reclaim their land in this region. In 1980, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US government had indeed stolen the land when it unilaterally broke away from a treaty guaranteeing that the Black Hills belonged to the Sioux Nation. The government offered monetary compensation; the Sioux people declined, still wanting their land back. And the dispute is still not resolved.
Our plan for the day was to visit nearby Mount Rushmore, drive through Bighorn National Forest, and enter Yellowstone from the east. After about 30 minutes, we arrived at Mount Rushmore and stopped to take the obligatory photo of the entrance.
After a bend in the road, we finally saw the US presidents!
After parking the car in a garage that was sturdily built into the side of the mountain and looked better than any garage in Boston, we walked up the stairs to take some photos.
White people took the mountain from the Lakota Sioux native Americans after a series of military campaigns in the late 1870s. In 1885, the mountain was named after Charles E. Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, who was on a prospecting expedition. Scupltor Gutzon Borglum started the carving started in 1927 and his son finished it in 1941, with the entire project costing close to USD 1 million. Each figure was about 60 feet high.
The walkway to the viewing platform was surrounded by the flags of the 50 states. I looked for the flags of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Republic of California and didn’t know which one I belonged to. Perhaps both.
Anh-Hoa tried to look presidential.
Some close-up photos.
We left Mount Rushmore after about 30 minutes, headed down the mountain and was promptly stuck in a road construction for another half hour.
More to come…
Discussion
No comments yet.