Family Vacation Part Two: Rushmore and Bigger Statues

My biggest worry was daylight--once the sun went down at 6:05, we wouldn't be able to see a thing. This part of the country gets DARK, and the sidewalks roll up. Since we had stopped at so many attractions on the way, we had to skip the gold mine and Bear Country. Jewel Cave was closed for the season due to construction. Fortunately, we had gained an hour by traveling west. Emily drove while Irene napped. I fretted about impending rain.

We arrived at Mount Rushmore at around 2:30 Mountain Time. Irene was so excited. "I can't believe I'm here. It's like a movie or Phineas and Ferb." Yes, she watched it in Spain and shared a love of the cartoon with our family. We had recently shown her Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the prototype for the show, along with several of our other teen-friendly favorite movies.

Unfortunately, construction had begun at Rushmore, twenty feet from the gift shop. To get to the good viewing platform we remembered from our last visit (hence the matching T-shirts in the photo), we had to walk 45 minutes on a trail that made our legs burn. All to get a few feet closer. I was stressed about the schedule, but the ladies loved the scenery. When we rested at the Jefferson plaque, I commented that Jefferson with his pale sparkle looked like a Twilight vampire. That became a running joke for the afternoon.

We took a ton of photos for ourselves and others. My favorite was in a moment of dad humor, I posed the same way as the presidents and shot a selfie up my own nose, with plenty of throat shadow.

Next, we raced to the Crazy Horse Monument. At one turn, we braked and pointed three feet from the car at the side of the road. "Look, Irene, an antelope."

"Where?"

She wasn't wearing her glasses again, out of a misplaced sense of vanity. Tammy has tried to tell her she looks beautiful either way, but it's a habit. At fast-food restaurants, Irene uses her phone to photograph the menu and enlarges the print. We have tried to convince her (I through teasing) that seeing is more important. I included this picture of the amazing carving because it's one of the few times she voluntarily put them on.

The tour bus driver at Crazy Horse was a wealth of information. All of Rushmore would fit in this statue's head and hair.

In the next town, we searched for someplace to have a late dinner, and only two places were open. We decided to get a chicken alfredo pizza instead of waiting an hour at the burger place. For the price, they were very stingy with the chicken. The lesson--don't travel off-season in this area. In the two-hour drive in the dark, the girls played Heads Up word guessing game on an iPhone. We downloaded the movie and pop song expansions. The most hilarious part was the Warner Brothers cartoons and Muppets. Evidently, the characters have different names in Spanish. Kermit is known as Gustavo la Rana. I just remember one moment after Irene said, "Oh, no. His name is Roberto." Emily laughed so hard she dropped the phone.

That night, we stayed in Sunset, at the junction of all the looping highways. The ladies enjoyed the pool while I walked to a truck stop for a noncaffinated drink. Then I typed up some notes on my latest story. Emily also used the WiFi to submit assignments for her college classes. Did I mention that she's fifteen and wants to be a doctor someday?

The next blog entry will conclude the trip with the Wyoming sites.