Mt. Rushmore's White House Resort Keystone

... Mountain. It sounded interesting so I set off in that direction. When I got there, however, much to my dismay, there was no horse in sight. And certainly not a crazy one. In the way that Mount Rushmore did exactly what it says on the tin, this place did nothing of the sort. But then I started reading. And watching. And it became abundantly clear that it was more impressive than it's barber shop ...

... I have to say that although the sculptures were impressive, they were nowhere as big as I was expecting. Took the obligatory photos, and walked some of the way around the very pristine paths that went right to the edge of the rock face with the<br>Presidents above. In case you're wondering the 4 presidents in the sculpture are: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt &amp; Thomas Jefferson. On the way out we asked some other tourists to take our photo as a ...

... cinnamon topped doughnut so decided not to follow us.<br><br>Anyway, we got to Mount Rushmore at about half 5, $10 to park the car and then we all got out and walked over to it. It was kinda impressive, possibly a bit smaller than I imagined but still pretty cool to see. We took a whole heap of photos, and a few more when the General got creative and decided to get the other 4 of us to pose as the faces looked in the rock face, this ...

... that Wyoming had green grass. Andrew finally felt better and spent quite a bit of time in the front seat talking with Mark. At one point Andrew said " where is everyone?" Yep miles and miles of nobody on the road but us. We finally reaced South Dakota and the Black Hills. Stopped quickly at the entrance to Crazy HOrse but because it was already after 7p.m. we really didn't have time to spend- we still had ...

... impressive. Its been a few days since the last chocolate or mac-n-cheese. Our little experiment seems to be going quite well - a 24/7 happy boy. Until.... We get home from dinner and there is enough time for Zac to have a quick play. Then there is a sad little voice which asks, "Daddy, where are my Bakugan?". They were gone. Nowhere to be found. Hmm. Not good. Tears. More tears. Think, Daddy, think. We re-trace. The ...

... reluctantly directed us to the U-turn towards the exit. By the time we hit Mount Rushmore, it was about 8:45 a.m. I wanted to be there slightly earlier to see the sun come up over the memorial, but I can't complain over the extra sleep I received. This was a memorial I've always wanted to see, and I was so happy to be able to have the opportunity to visit it while driving through to Minnesota. I think I even did a little victory leap at the end, like ...

... on our way out of town in a couple of days) and headed back to the lodge. The pool was less crowded this time, so it was much better for Brooks since he didn't keep on running into other people. After the swim we parked the car to see the Mt. Rushmore fireworks, which we could barely see over the tree line. From our vantage point they were "OK". Even though I'm sure the view from the base of Mount Rushmore was much better, I couldn't imagine waiting 13 hours just for that.

... Cave http://www.nps.gov/jeca/index.htm , as the site says Jewel Cave at 146 miles is the second longest cave in the world. One of the things that is nice about it is that they try to keep it from becoming like many cave tourist attractions and protect the integrity of the site.<br> After my tour there it was getting on toward evening so I stopped at the Moon Camp Ground in the national forest for the night.

... the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail a little further on. I stopped a while at the visitor center then onto the Gullies Overlook and the Pinnacles. What a day. I even saw a veritical rainbow that went straight up in the distance. <br> I was back to civilization when I reached Grand Rapids, stopping at the Ruchmore Mall where I got a late snack and picked up a book, groceries at the Kmart-supplies for the next few days as I would be ...