Miles Driven: 437
States: Wyoming · Nebraska · South Dakota
The 40-Mile Dirt Road
There isn’t much to see from Cheyenne to Mount Rushmore, so we were quite fascinated by the little things, which I guess is how you should always go through life.
We decided to take the road less traveled, in spite of Siri’s persistence to reroute us. We hopped over to Nebraska before heading north into South Dakota. This road is obviously the less-traveled. Therefore there was no sign welcoming us into South Dakota and suddenly before we knew it, the two-lane “highway” that we were on turned into an open rocky dirt road…for 40 miles.
Crazy Horse
The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument on private land in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It commemorates the famous Native American leader, Crazy Horse. Due to the memorial being a nonprofit that refuses to receive federal or state funding, the memorial has been in progress since 1948. Operated by the Lakota Chiefs and the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, it’s primarily supported by visitor fees and donations.
The Native American Educational and Cultural Center and Indian Museum of North America allow visitors to meet with Native American artisans and enjoy a vast collection of cultural and historical artifacts, exhibits, and guided tours.
Mount Rushmore
The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a short 17-mile drive away from the Crazy Horse Memorial. As we drove up the hill and parked, true to form, we played The Ultimate Road Trip Game. For the life of either of us, we could not remember the 4th president! There’s Washington, Lincoln, Teddy…and…oh yeah Jefferson! Gosh, as a US citizen, how embarrassing!
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect upon visiting Mount Rushmore. We’d seen some pretty amazing places thus far, and c’mon they were just rocks with faces carved in them, right?
As we walked out of the parking garage, the national monument welcomed us with a walkway of state flags leading to what can only be described as breathtaking, massive iconic symbols of sculpted rocks!
“America will march along that skyline”
When you see pictures and movies with Mount Rushmore, you cannot grasp the size of these heads. 60-foot sculptures of some of our very first presidents. A fun fact, these figures were originally going to be carved from head to waist. However, insufficient funding forced the carvings to end. I was already in awe simply from their heads, I cannot imagine a sculpted bust version.
**Not long after our road trip ended, North by Northwest, a 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie, was on TV. It was interesting to see the characters running around the famous location we had just visited.
