June 25, 2012

View of the day - Mount Rushmore.  What else can we say.


We were up early and raring to go...driving time again.  This time it was tacky tourist time as we headed west to the Black Hills to visit with Bob and Jeannie Gibbons, the folks we harvested for in Balcarres, SK last fall.  They were touring around and had given us a call to come out for a visit while they were in the state...and you know us...we love to drive. 


We left just after 9am and only had 20 miles to go on the 65mph highway, then once we hit the interstate and the 75mph zone it wasn't time at all and we had covered the 220 miles and were ready for lunch.


Bob and Jeannie had stayed in Hill City and had taken a scenic ride on the old train that runs between there and Keystone. We met them for lunch on the boardwalk in Keystone, had a good visit, then loaded up in our pickup and drove up to see Mt. Rushmore...what an amazing sight.


After going to the observation deck and getting some pictures, we went down to the information Centre to check out the displays and watch a video on the history of the mountain carving...hard to imagine until you see it.

The next thing we did was walk down 800 steps to see the sculpters studio...okay, it seemed like 800, more like 50.  In the studio was a large sculpture that was next to a window that Borglum, could see the mountain through.  When we were done, it was time to climb up those steps again to get to the parking lot.

We walked up about 25 steps, then stopped for a break.  Al was so frazzled that he sat on the brick wall and didn't even see the park bench beside him...and all he ever talks about is being able to sit on a park bench and watch the world go by.  We managed to find a winding path that took us most of the way back to the parking lot, so we didn't have to deal with the rest of the stairs.

We drove back into Keystone, got an ice tea, then sat out beside the tracks to wait for the train to come in so Bob and Jeannie could go back to Hill City for the night.  Once the train showed up, got serviced and watered, they were on their way...and so were we.

We took the scenic route through Rapid City, since Marilyn wasn't paying attention to the GPS and we knew it didn't have the new construction on it...we got out without incident and hit the interstate flying.


There were weather warnings out for the area we had just left and we hoped that the hour ride that Bob and Jeannie had on the open train was short enough to get them into shelter before it hit...and it was.  We stopped in Wall to have a quick supper, then rushed to stay ahead of the storm...which we accomplished.

We decided to take a short cut for the last 40 miles of the journey...perhaps next time we will try it during the daylight hours...and made it back home only 15 minutes later than Al had planned...10:40pm.  Another great day of driving, but we had a wonderful time and we didn't get any of the 105º temperatures that some of the other harvesters are suffering through.


Oh, wait...that's tomorrow...