The Shrine of Democracy
Greetings, tis I once more. This is it. Today is the day. The day we leave at quarter to noon and set off for the four great faces in the mountain. The Shrine of Democracy (eheheheh). It is certain, though, that Mount Rushmore is very impressive, despite all it’s ridiculous patriotness. The area around the actual mountain is very developed, with a couple hikes to get a closer look up George Washington’s nostrils and a museum with the history of the carving and the history of the carver, Gutzon Borglum. The audio guided tour tells you an even more in depth history of everything, including some information on Borglum’s kids, Mary Ellis and Lincoln (named after Gutzon’s president préférer), who finished up the project after their fathers death. The Mount Rushmore Memorial isn’t, in fact, a finished
project. There were further designs, but the person who was supposed to put them into action died in surgery in Chicago on his way to the White House to ask for further funding. The money ran out, and it was declared a complete work of art, even though half of Abe’s face doesn’t exist. Anyways, it was very educational in the ways of carving during the depression, Mormon families in the late 19th century and the wonderful presidents Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, in order of appearance. Fun fact, the original idea was to have heroes of the west, such as Lewis and Clarke and Sitting Bull, but Gutzon Borglum decided to make it a monument on a national scale, so as to attract more tourists. Also, another tidbit, there were originally only supposed to be three presidents (Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson), but Borglum added Roosevelt as a tribute to his friend. I have more useless facts, but I’ll stop there. After this trip packed with trivia, we headed back to the camper to rescue Kismet and bring her along on our trip to Hill City, one of the two extremely little towns flanking Rushmore. We wandered around main street for about an hour and fifteen before heading back for a dinner of delicious spaghetti and some biking around to explore the outer reachings of this massive resort. We returned to Mount Rushmore shortly after 8:00pm to see the nightly lighting ceremony of the memorial. We sat in an amphitheatre and there was a speech about Lincoln, honouring Gutzon’s devotion to the 16th president of the United States, a patriotic video with a little tidbit about each president seen above which ended with a song about America that everyone knew except us and a lowering of the flag accompanied by every military person and representative in the audience. Also, of course, there was the standing for the singing of the beloved National Anthem. The lighting part wasn’t all that exciting, it was just a white light that was pointed and the faces, but it looked cool when we were driving back around the side of the hills and you could see George Washington’s face lit in profile. By the time we got back to our living quarters, it was quite late. I only wrote a little of this here blog before heading off to bed, as we had an early start the next day for a trail ride! Peace out m8s.
I may or may not have kicked Abe Lincoln in the face. Sorry bud, a house devided and all that.