This is just a quick post about our second day in Rapid City, and one of the reasons we chose to stay here was its close proximity to Mount Rushmore, which we were keen to visit, so we spent the first part of the day at this National Memorial site…and it did not disappoint.

The main attraction was obviously the presidents faces carved into the rock side, which is located in the Black Hills in South Dakota, and in case you don’t know which presidents feature, they are (from left to right)…George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

It was a pretty amazing sight and we were keen to learn more about it. So, it was rather fortunate that there was also a short documentary film showing which explained the history of the sculpture, from where the idea came from (proposed by a historian in 1923 to attract people to South Dakota) and how it was designed and then created (by a sculptor called Gutzon Borglum – he actually died before it was completed so his son had to take over the project near the end). It actually took 14 years to carve, from 1927 to 1941, and there were around 400 workers involved, which is mad.

It was actually really interesting learning all about it like how they used dynamite to blast through the granite rock and then used pneumatic drills to shape the rock. They also had to redo Thomas Jefferson after about 1.5 yrs into the sculpture…they originally started carving him on the other side of Washington but due to cracks in the rock they had to use dynamite to get rid of the incomplete sculpture and start him again on the other side.

As you approach the rock face you walk down a corridor called the ‘Avenue of Flags’ which is a huge walkway lined with all the flags of the US states.

There is also a short walk you can do around the site, named the ‘Presidential trail’ which takes you closer to the base of the rock face. You can’t get anywhere near it obviously but you get some different views of the sculpture from various locations.

There’s actually an evening illuminations show they put on after dark where they shine light onto the mountain side which would be really cool to see so we are thinking of going back tomorrow night so watch this space.

A close game of mini golf…

We also went to play crazy golf on the way back, and we had seen a fair few courses dotted around so we opted to play a pirate themed course, named ‘Pirate Cove’.

As always in the US the course theming was very good and the holes were a mixture of challenging and more straight forward, although you wouldn’t think it when you looked at the par for each hole which was a pretty constant 2 shots per hole, apart from only a couple which were a par 3.

Anyway, when we got to tallying up the scores at the end we discovered that we’d both taken 44 shots! So, we then looked at who got the most holes in one to see if that would clinch it for someone…

…but as you can see from the above pics, we both got one of those! Si said we should call it a draw at that point but I said lets see who got the most holes in two…and I got 10 and Si got 12 so technically I think I won. Si will say different obviously but those are the Emery rules on how we decide the winner if there is a tie score…ha ha. [Simon: I say that it should go on who didn’t get the worst score for a hole – Lucy got a 6, I got a 5]

We then went to Sickies burger and Brew Bar for an early dinner after golf, and they do the most insane burgers, and I think the name ‘Sickies’ is actually quite apt as I felt pretty sick after my burger it was that filling. They have some wild combinations too…one of them was a burger and instead of being in a bun it was between two grilled cheese sandwiches. Not sure there is an occasion where I would want two grilled cheese sandwiches and a burger at the same time, but this is America so anything goes!

Anyway, that’s it from us. We have one more day in Rapid City tomorrow before we move onto our final stop so more from us soon.

Lucy