Stay tuned for the next chapter of out trip!
Visit www.carolstefano.com/travel to learn more about our trip across the USA. There are lots of pictures and posts about our daily lives.
First thing of course is Mount Rushmore, the monument that placed South Dakota on the map. Beautiful massive sculpture carved into the Granite in the Black Hills, completed in 1941 under the direction of Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln. The faces carved are from left to right, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Rosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation’s birth, growth, development, and preservation, respectively.
We also visited the ongoing monument of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior that played a big role on battles against the white man that happened in the area in the mid 1800s. The park has a Native American Cultural Center, which I visited with Bia and was quite interesting for both of us.
In the afternoon we visited Custer’s State Park. Wow, what a beautiful place. Just road itself was beautiful and when we got to the park the kids were very excited. That day we did a small hike and came back later to explore more. We asked them to pick a trail and we ended doing the longest of them all. hahahahah. Took us FOUR hours. We were exausted, even Maggie was tiered but we were so proud of the girls for finishing it, we had no other way 🙂 At the end of afternoon we just sat under a tree and the kids went to the lake for a swim in Sylvan lake. In the area we took the needles highway, so beautiful. In a different day we came back to hike to cathedral Spires, breathtaking view. They also have a Wild life loop where you can spot bison, deer, lots of them, also many other animals. Very amusing.
In a different day we visited the Big Thunder Mountain mine, located in Keywest. I loved to hear about the history of the area. The kids enjoyed too, the best part was panning and look for gold. We learned that Gold is heavier than other minerals. End of the day the grand prize was ice cream at Armadillos. 🙂