Mount Rushmore at Night

June 19, 2013 Day 19

Today was a big day, not a big travel day but a big day seeing big things.  It started in Kennebec, South Dakota, with a Big breakfast at the KOA outdoor kitchen.  It may have been the Big breakfast was was not that good, Sharon does much better.











After that we unhooked and headed off, 125 miles down the road to the Big of the Biggest, Wall Drug.  If most of you are like me you never ever heard of Wall Drug.  It seems to be advertised on Highway 90 from Wisconsin to South Dakota.  I think Nancy asked me if we were going to Wall Drug.  Well after that nudge and all the advertising we had seen along the highway it was a must see, so Wall Drug here we come.  It started out way back when, just a drug store in Wall, South Dakota.  The town Wall gets its name from the Bad Lands, where there is a big wall carved out by the winds and erosion.  Wall Drug was trying to get customers to their store so they could make a go of it and nothing was working.  Then one day Mrs. Wall Drug put out a few signs offering "Free Ice Water" and the travelers started coming by the hundreds, and as they say, the rest is history.  It is two city blocks in down town Wall that is completely covered with every touristy item that you could possible think of and maybe a few more.  We stopped for a break and got a little lunch.  I bought a golf ball with a picture of Mount Rushmore and a bumper sticker.  In addition to the Free Ice Water, they also have nickle coffee, which I took advantage of.

























































After Wall it was on to Mount Rushmore located close to Rapid City, 50 miles down the road.  Well that 50 miles turned into 75 when the GPS routed us through the mountains on small windy roads.  When we got hopefully lost we started looking at our resources and the KOA book said that the GPS directions were wrong and that you should just follow highway 16, and look for the signs.  I then called the camp ground to try to get directions from where we were, and we could not explain to the person on the phone where we were, so we drove down the road about 100 yards turned around and right in front of us was the sign to the Camp Ground, we were saved again.

Finally we made it, registered and paid a very handsome sum for the spot, seems that this park is classified as a resort and they charged us a resort fee.  That's OK, because it is a very nice park and very close to the Big Mount Rushmore.  The plan was to go to the night light ceremony in the evening and then back during the day.  We opted to take a shuttle bus from the park to the mountain, which was a very good decision.  Just sit back an relax and leave the driving, parking, hassle to them.  We left the park at 7 and the light ceremony started at 9.  That left plenty of time for dinner and some Thomas Jefferson ice cream.  Seems that Thomas Jefferson brought a french chef over to the US and made very good ice cream.

The night ceremony was very good, it started with a 10 minute talk from the Ranger, followed by a 15 minute talk about the Mount Rushmore Memorial and what it meant, followed by a 20 minute movie about the patriotic significance of the Memorial, complete with crowd singing of America and the National Anthem, quite moving.  Then they invited the service men and women down to the front for the lowering of the Colors and afterward passed the microphone around to everyone that was on the stage, about 60 people, and had them say their name and branch of service.  It was very nice in the special recognition.

The ceremony wrapped up around 10, then it was back on the bus, thank god, and back to the park.

Oh, yea, we slipped in Happy Hour just before we boarded the bus for the mountain.