Yep, it was just like I remembered it from 1973 - a bunch of heads carved out of a mountaintop way up there. Can you say tourist trap? We luckily drove only an hour or so out of our way to spend ten minutes at the national monument which really IS much ado about nothing. Sure, incredible technology for its time and all that. But the question must be asked: why? So now the kids can say they've been to Mt. Rushmore (and they can take their kids there to be underwhelmed sometime in the distant future).
The exciting thing is that we're now only about 2 hours from the Eastern entrance of Yellowstone. Here's a lovely picture of the sky last night in Wall, SD:
This afternoon we wended our way through the Big Horn Mountains on our way to the western part of the state. For folks who live in Flatland USA driving through this contoured landscape was breathtaking. We're becoming visual gluttons!
