Day 19: Rest Day in Rapid City

Day off the bike today and I resisted the urge to slob around the hotel all day and took in a couple of the local attractions.  A couple of the group hired a car and kindly let me accompany them to see the Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse stone sculptures.  Mount Rushmore is the carving of the four American presidents' heads and Crazy Horse is a work in progress sculpture of a Native American leader on his horse. Both were impressive sights with interesting stories of their construction, Crazy Horse is on a much larger scale, the face of the Indian is 27 meters high compared to the 18 meters of the presidents of Mount Rushmore.  I probably preferred Mount Rushmore since it is finished, Crazy Horse really only has the head complete and who knows how long it will take to do the rest.  I couldn't help thinking of the scene in Superman 2 where General Zod and the other baddies use their laser vision to replace the presidents' heads with their own.  We got back early afternoon so still had time to do laundry and spend half a day slobbing round the hotel.

Mount Rushmore 1

Mount Rushmore 2

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse with model of final sculpture

Dimensions of the finished sculpture