Mount Rushmore National Memorial

After we settled in and took a well deserved nap - we had both left home at about 4:50am that morning, we went and ate and then took a shuttle from the KOA to Mount Rushmore at 7:00. The Memorial does a night presentation every night so we went to watch that, see the video, the monument itself and walk around the grounds there. We highly recommend the night show - it was cool. We got there and took some pictures, look through the museum and so forth and then settled in for the show

The four presidents on the monument are Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt,and Lincoln.

Washington is known as the father of the nation.

Jefferson is known as the father of expansion because of the Louisiana Purchase.

Roosevelt is known as the father of development because of his conservation efforts of the natural wonders/parks in the US.

Lincoln is known as the father of preservation because of his role in keeping the union together during the Civil War.

The night show was nice. We sang the National Anthem together, did some president trivia (the four on the monument), watched a video about the making of Mount Rushmore, and then there was a lighting ceremony where it is lit up and patriotic music plays. At the they ask all the military or retired military to come up and we applauded them and they took down the flag in a flag ceremony. I tried to get Dallas to go but we were sitting on the balcony and it would have taken a long time to get there, so she didn't. It was really nice and helped me remember again how blessed we are to have this great nation, the freedoms we have and the opportunities that are afforded us.

Here are some of the photos.

This is the entrance.

This is called the Avenue of Flags - there is a flag from each state.

This picture I thought was cool - as we drove around the corner toward the campsite we saw this and had to take a picture - it is surreal to be so close and for them to be so large. Each head is 60 feet in length and it took 17 years to complete it.