Mount Rushmore

After our time at the Crazy Horse Memorial, we drove just a few minutes down the street and arrived at the majestic Mount Rushmore. When we booked this trip, we were excited about the whole itinerary but the main reason we chose this tour, was to see this famous American treasure, so this was the moment we had all been waiting for.

It was amazing seeing it in person, its definitely a check the box on a life bucket list kind of event. However, many of us were surprised by how small it looks in person, which sounds crazy because each face is 60 feet tall, but to be honest, pictures make it look so much bigger. But it is still monumental and amazing to see.

We took our Tauck Tour photo here, compete with our delightful guide, Cindy and our sweet bus driver.

Cindy was sweet enough to arrange for the photographer to take a photo of just our family, it is so nice to have one of the entire family from this trip!

After fully documenting everyone in the family, we took the Presidential Trail that leads you closer to the monument.

Along the trail, there is a cave you can walk into that gives you an interesting view of George Washington.

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum selected the four presidents to represent major events in the history of the United States: Washington represents the birth, Jefferson symbolizes the growth or expansion, Lincoln illustrates the preservation and Roosevelt embodies the development. 

There are so many fascinating facts and interesting stories about Mount Rushmore and it's creation, it was so fun to learn about this artistic masterpiece.

After exploring as much of the Preidental Trail as we good, the upper part of it was closed, we headed back down to the main observation area to cool off in the large gift shop and ice cream parlor.

These state flags are arranged in order of when each state were admitted to the union, and the date they were admitted is carved into the pillars.

Back at the bus, Cindy has a surprise for all of us, little patriotic cupcakes!

This was the last day of our tour, so we had our farewell dinner at the hotel where we got to say thank you and goodbye to our tour guide and bus driver.

The kids' excitement and love of MASH was still going strong.

That night, we all had the option of going back to Mount Rushmore for their lighting ceremony. Bethy and I both wanted to go and we were surprised that we were the only ones from the entire tour that ended up going, they had ordered an entire tour bus and we were the only ones on it.

We had fun with the driver that was hired for just this little transportation, he was telling us all about South Dakota, especially the world famous Wall Drug store, which we hadn't visited yet, but it was on our plans for the next day. He told us he got married there, which fascinated us to no end.

We got there early enough to snag one of the last seats along the marble wall. We had a little while to wait until the sun went down, so one of the rangers filled the time by telling us some super cheesy jokes.

Then they played a video about all four of the presidents represented in the sculpture which ended with God Bless America, and all of a sudden, the mountain lit up. I was a little surprised there wasn't a count down or any type of lead up to when they turned the lights on, they just popped on in the middle of the song.

At the end of the program they invited up all veteran and active military soldiers to come up on stage, so the crowd could thank them for their selfless service.

A very memorable day.