Sunday we crossed the wide Missouri River. We entered the Black Hills and large farms and crops gave way to cows and horses. The fields were grass and stretched forever. So far the only road maintenance has been 20 miles of two lane traffic, where they are working on the other half of the Interstate. Our first stop in Rapid City, after setting up, was to get Charles new glasses. Monday morning we visited Mt. Rushmore. It is amazing that the work was done without power tools. The carving and blasting was started in 1927 and the sculpture was finished in 1941. Borglum used a 1/12th scale model to make the sculpture accurate. One inch on the model equals one foot on the sculpture. The president's heads are 60ft in height and the noses are 21 ft long. They were preparing for the Independence Day celebration by moving 6,000 shots of fireworks up the front of the monument. They started at 7 AM and were moving them in 50 pound bags. We listened to a ranger speak about the history of the area and the carving. Artist Borglum knew he wanted the work to be a national site and had already chosen the subjects before South Dakota commissioned him to do the work. He had just finished Stone Mountain in GA. He chose George Washington, our first president, to represent the birth of the nation. Thomas Jefferson represents expansion with the Louisiana Purchase. Theodore Roosevelt represents development of the nation during a new century and Abraham Lincoln represents preservation by saving the nation during the Civil War.
We also learned Sioux is a name used the the enemies of the Lakota people. It means small snake in the grass. I am glad my name is Sue.
Tuesday we were on the road again. We left SD and entered Wyoming. The Gillette area was marked by many oil wells and coal mines and coal trains.
We saw a strange billboard that neither of us understood. It said "Hard work never second hand smoked anyone". Does this make any sense to anyone? Tonight we are in Billings, Montana and tomorrow will be in Helena, Montana. The next big event is July 2-5 when we will be in an RV park on the east side of Glacier National Park.
