About 25 miles south of Rapid City, South Dakota is a place that I think everyone has seen in pictures, Mount Rushmore.  I drove down to see it though the lovely Black Hills, taking my time, and just enjoying the scenery.

I expected a famous site like this to be more crowded in the summer months while kids are all on school holidays, but although there were certainly plenty of people there, it never felt overcrowded.  It’s designated as a National Memorial Site, the ample and easy parking is $11 for a car, and entry is free.  The walkway to the carving is suitably impressive.

In case you’re not aware, the presidents depicted are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abe Lincoln.  If I confess the truth, when I first saw it I was just slightly disappointed that the carving was… well… exactly as I expected.  I’ve gotten used, on this trip, to finding everything so much bigger and grander than I knew, that somehow I managed to be disappointed at Mount Rushmore!

But that was only at first.  I took the Presidents’ Walkway to the base of the sculpture to get a closer look.  The scale of them when you’re close up is really grand, and I could imagine the men who worked on it hanging from their bosun chairs on each face.  Interestingly, I read that the men were so skilled with dynamite that they could blow the rock away to within a few inches of the final surface of the carving.  Thus, over 90% of the carving was actually done with dynamite, and the last 10% finished with jackhammers and by hand.  Looking up, I found it just slightly disconcerting that their nostrils were plugged.

But then I saw their eyes.  Wow, they looked so real, so spiritual, so inspired!  Imagine carving something that huge and capturing a facial expression like this one on Thomas Jefferson.

I was quite interested to learn that the statue was originally intended to include more of their bodies, and even hands, but “because of a variation in the rock formation,” the bottom part was never completed.

The designer and sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, had plaster casts made of each face, and they were used on the site to help guide the workers.

Overall I was glad I went — it was a bucket list kind of thing — but I can’t say that it was the biggest thrill I’ve had on this trip.  I’m not particularly artistic, so unless it’s a well designed machine, I always find nature more moving than the hand of man.  But I was pleased and quietly impressed, which I think is enough.