Monday, September 15, 2008

September 15, 2008

To all you anxious blog-readers!

You do not have to wait any longer. Today we are posting the pictures we took of Mount Rushmore during the day and at night. Even though we have all seen pictures of Mount Rushmore in books and on postcards, these are special pictures because they were taken by us.

First a little history for those of you who need a bit of a refresher. Mount Rushmore was designed by sculpturer, Gutzon Borglum -- a big thinker and maverick (where have we heard that word recently?) in his day. A true patriot, he wanted to honor President Washington for overseeing the birth of this great nation, President Jefferson for his vision to expand the nation's territory with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (acquiring 828,000 square miles for $0.035 a square mile), President Lincoln for keeping the United States one nation under God, and President Theodore Roosevelt for preserving over 200 million acres of this country's natural resources, including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite.

When Mr. Borglum announced that he was going to carve a memorial 465 feet tall of these Presidents (each head as tall as a six-story building), people back east said something like this: "Mr. Borglum wants to distroy another mountain. But it's in South Dakota and no one will ever see it."

It took 400 men, working with dynamite and in dangerous conditions, 14 years (1927-1941) to complete the monument. And, no workers were killed on the job either. There is a granite monument here with the names of all of the workers engraved on it. Today, there are only two men living who worked on the sculpture. One is senile and we met the other one in the bookstore -- Don "Nick" Clifford. We bought his book (which he autographed) and Jerry later read. I haven't read it yet because Jerry said it was all about the drill bits they used to do the job and other such men's interests. (See picture of me with Mr. Clifford.)

One other piece of trivia -- do you know why the mountain was named Mount Rushmore? Answer: because a lawyer from New York named Mr. Rushmore came out to South Dakota in the late 1800s to check out his investment in many mines. The lawyer pointed to the mountain and asked the rancher who was his guide, "what is the name of that mountain?" The rancher said something to the effect: "It doesn't have a name. But it does now. We'll call it Mount Rushmore." (Wouldn't you know, it had to be named after a lawyer.)

While the daytime view and park service guided tour was excellent, if you ever come here, you have to see the evening presentation. They have a large outdoor amphitheater, with great sound. The presentation includes a movie on the carving of the monument. In the movie, there were spectacular scenes of America while "America the Beautiful" was sung in the background.

After the movie, the park ranger asked everyone to rise and sing our National Anthem. He then requested all military personnel (now serving or who had ever served in any branch of our armed services) to come up on the stage. Jerry joined a rather large crowd on stage. Each person was asked to state their name, branch of service and years served. The park ranger joking said: "who knows, you might run into an old service-mate." Sure enough, after Jerry said he was with "Navy VFP-63," a few minutes later, another guy announced that he was also in "Navy VFP-63." Turns out, he was there two years after Jerry left. It was interesting because he and his wife, too, are also RVers.

Let us say one other thing about Mount Rushmore. We were here last in 1979 while on our motorcycle trip touring the United States. What a difference! Between 1994-1998, they spent $57 million dollars to upgrade the area around the sculture. All you people from Cold Spring, Minnesota -- that is Cold Spring granite that you see on the picture below.

Until next time -- live the life 'ya love!!