Day 6, South Dakota--Mount Rushmore National Memorial

This was the park that inspired our whole trip. No matter what, we wanted to get to see Mount Rushmore and Mount Rushmore we did.

There's been a lot of stuff added to this site (not the rock monument itself) but a lot of this stuff wasn't here 15 years ago when Glen saw it with his family.

They had a booth for the kids to learn about flags. I didn't know that the different colors on our flag meant different things. Still can't tell you what they mean without looking it up but it was interesting to find out it wasn't just because the colors look good together.=)

Even Calvin found stuff to keep him busy.

Inside the Visitor's Center was TONS of information. Our favorite was learning that 90% of Mount Rushmore was formed by dynamite. They had this hands on exhibit. The kids would pick which part of Mount Rushmore they wanted to blast on the Tv screen. Then they'd push the dynamite blaster down and BOOM! The kids spent a lot of time blowing stuff up.=)

The hike around the base of the mountain had lots of lookup points. This view is from the inside of a cave. I thought it was fun cuz you can see right up Washington's nose.

They also had exhibits along the trail. We pet a buffalo fur.

We saw how the inside of a teepee might be decorated. We even noticed they had buffalo furs for carpeting.

And of course a teepee was set up so we could go inside.

This was some rubble at the base of the mountain. You can see some of the rocks have straight lines through them. These are from drilling in order to place dynamite.

On the trail was Borglum's art studio. This was where the mastermind behind the mountain did his work. This replica was used as a model for the workers. The park ranger is demonstrating a jackhammer.

Here's what the completed mountain would've looked like if the sculptor hadn't died or ran out of money for the project.

The kids worked on their Junior Ranger books throughout our visit. Lots of fun stuff we learned through these books. Even Alex had a Junior Ranger Trainee booklet she worked on. She enjoyed sporting her badge around after this trip.