Meeting Famous Faces – and the Devil, too!
Posted on: November 2, 2008No comments yet
Only Ruz – who grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, had met them. The rest of us hadn’t – not quite yet.
“We’re going to Mount Rushmore!,” Erica squealed. It was nearly 9:00 at night, and Shawn was weaving our RV through the curvy roads to meet the famous faces: the first President of the United States George Washington, President #3 and firm believer in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness Thomas Jefferson, Nobel Peace-Prize winning (and 26th President) Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, and slavery-abolitionist Abraham Lincoln.
If you Wikipedia.com “Mount Rushmore”, you’ll find several interesting facts, such as: during the carving process, there was heavy use of dynamite, in which two million tons of rock were blasted off the mountainside! You’ll also be interested (and relieved!) to know that no one died at any point of the project, which cost $989,992.32. The pictures you could find on Google are pretty, but nothing beat seeing it live, and especially at night!
We camped out in the area for the night, then headed out bright and early the next morning to see our next national monument – Devils Tower, tucked away in northeast Wyoming.
Many of us had never heard of Devils Tower – when we searched for images of the Tower, we were unimpressed. But it’s not until you see it when you finally stand in awe, because what differentiates Devils Tower from the surrounding terrain is that it rises an astonishing 1,267 feet over the rest – and the folklore behind the Devils Tower.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.com:
Another version tells of how two Sioux boys wandered far from their village when Mato the bear, a huge creature that had claws the size of teepee poles, spotted them, and wanted to eat them for breakfast. He was almost upon them when the boys prayed to Wakan Tank the Creator to help them. They rose up on a huge rock, while Mato tried to get up from every side, leaving huge scratch marks as he did. Finally, he sauntered off, disappointed and discouraged. The bear came to rest east of the Black Hills at what is now Bear Butte. Wanblee, the eagle, helped the boys off the rock and back to their village.
Something definitely worth seeing!
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