Day 27, Fri Aug 26, Gillette, WY to Valentine, NE visit Mt. Rushmore

We had a full day today.  We started out fairly early and set our sights on Crazy Horse Monument and Mount Rushmore.

We stopped first at Crazy Horse which is a sculpture that is being carved into the Black Hills of South Dakota as a tribute to Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota war chief.  The memorial was designed and partially carved out of the stone by Korczak Ziolkowski.  Since his death, his work is being continued by his wife and children.  The memorial, though partially complete is of an enormous scale.

The face has been completed

This is a scaled model of what the finished memorial will look like.  It is so large that all of the Mount Rushmore carvings would fit in the area of his head!

Our next stop was Mount Rushmore to see the familiar memorial of four of our presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.  We had lunch there and continued on towards the Wind Cave National Park.

Our own version of Mount Rushmore

Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln

The Wind Cave system is the 5th largest in the world.  Only 5% has been explored.  We were fortunate to arrive just as they were starting a tour.

Wind Cave National Park has acres of prairie and woods surrounding it.  Joshua informed us that the Prairie dog was the source of the bubonic plague in earlier times.  But aren't they cute!

We were tempted to camp in the Wind Cave National Park campground.  However, Joshua needs to be in school on Wednesday - so we need to hightail it home.

We decided to take Route 20 in Nebraska which winds through little towns (and I mean little - population 118 for example).  This turned out not to be the wisest choice.  Dave started looking for a gas station when we were at a half tank.  Unfortunately, the nearest gas station was 8 miles down the road (after we ran out of gas).

Curtis, a good samaritan, stopped to offer help just moments after we pulled over to the side.  Dave went with Curtis - forgetting to tell me that he was going :(  and came back with a couple of gallons from Curtis's lawn mower.  Yay Curtis!  We were back in business and on our way to the next town where we stopped at a bar/convenience store/gas station.  The pump looked like something we saw at the Route 66 museum.  Who needs digital displays!  After this fiasco, I cried Uncle and "we" decided to stay at a Motel for the night.  Free hot breakfast convinced David that this was a good idea.

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