June 25 – Mt. Rushmore

June 25, 2016 – Crazy Horse Monument and Mt. Rushmore
After breakfast we met for an orientation talk. We went around the room introducing ourselves. There are 37 in our tour group. We were told the importance of being on time.
36 of us were on the bus, as requested, by 9am. At 9:10am, Leah started to do a roll call when the 37th person showed up. We finally got under way.
As we traveled to the Crazy Horse Monument, we watched a film about the carving of the monument. The monument site has a large museum area including the plaster statue of what the monument will look like when it is completed. They say it will be 3 or 4 more generations until it is done. We took the bus out to the base of the monument for another photography stop.
We got to Mt. Rushmore a little before 1pm. First stop was lunch. Earl, Linda, and I opted for the grill for a cheeseburger (Linda and I) and a buffalo bratwurst (Earl). We had 1 1/2 hours to wander so we headed to the viewing spot to take pictures. Mt Rushmore looks smaller than I expected but still impressive. We hiked the Presidential Trail which circled under the sculptures but had 300 steps up and down.

Since we are at 5700 ft. the climb up was slow with a few stops to catch our breath.
When we got back to the hotel we walked over to town to see some of the president statues. There are two streets where they have statues on the corners for 6 blocks of every U.S. president.
Tomorrow is our first big travel day. Bags out at 7am and on the bus at 7:45am. We will stop and hike around Devils Tower before heading to Sheridan WY.