Starting and enjoying my day at Mount Rushmore

In the second part of my mid west America trip, I was in South Dakota. This is a state that has never got onto my radar, and certainly not a state that I had ever planned to visit. It's not that I have anything against it, it's just that with America being so massive, there's so many places to visit.

Mount Rushmore at day

Snowpea, Mary and I started our day in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore. Normally I'm not a big fan of man made structures and wasn't too bothered about visiting here or not. The rest of my group had it on their list from the beginning of the trip. Oh well, I guess if it's one of America's most popular landmark I'd better tick the box as well.

I have to admit, as I entered the park, and walked towards the massive sculptures of the four previous US presidents, the view was pretty impressive. The 50 state flags, along with the flags of Washington DC, and other territories and commonwealth lined both sides of the Avenue of Flags. They were arranged in alphabetical order. I have no personal affiliation with any of the states so wasn't looking for any state in particular, but found it interesting to look for the sequence of each state's accession to the union.

There's a very good visitor centre at the site, and has a lot of information about how this project came about. I was particularly interested to read about how they carved the 60 feet tall sculptures of the four presidents and why they chose those four particular men.
Gmb
One of the park rangers told us about a smaller loop road off Wildlife Loop Road. He said there were lots of bisons there. The American Bison is the national mammal of US. Male bisons can weigh as much as 2000lbs, and new born calves can even weigh between 30-70 lbs. Not something you want to get up close and personal with. In fact at many places we went where bisons are known to roam, we were repeatedly warned by the park rangers and locals to not go and pet them. Apparently some tourists are just pretty stupid. Why do they think it's safe to touch a 2000 lbs mammal who can charge up to 35 miles per hour and have big sharp horns on their head!!

Anyway, the sight of so many bisons is a really impressive scene. They where just lazing around minding their own business, oblivious of us tourists driving around starring at them.

The highlight of my day, and one of my most favourite park of the whole trip is Badlands National Park. This is another case of where I had no expectation, and the outcome was more than everything I could have wished for.

After Custer Park, there wasn't much to do nearby and someone suggested Badlands. It was about an hour and half away. I thought this would be another park with mountain scenery. Boy, was I wrong! The photos I show you doesn't do the park justice at all.