Mount Rushmore, South Dakota

Our first 'rest day' of the drive - and it wasn't really a rest day, as we were on the go for most of the day.

The weather continues to be absolutely perfect and the forecast for today was 72 degrees and sunny. What more could we ask for?

We decided to visit Mount Rushmore again and, when we arrived at the car park, we saw this wonderful Honda Goldwing motorbike and trailer. We spoke to the owner and his wife, who were from Indiana. He told me that the engine was a six cylinder 1.8 litre producing 100HP!

We walked on to the viewing point overlooking the monument and I was surprised how different the statues looked in the morning light. The features of the faces were much more distinct.

We spent about twenty minutes taking photos and then walked back to the car. On the way, we went past this bust of Gutzon Borglum, the Danish-American sculptor of the monument, done by his son.

We left Mount Rushmore for the short drive to the memorial being carved of the Indian chief, Crazy Horse. As we drove down from Mount Rushmore, we saw a sign saying there was a viewpoint from where you could see the Mount Rushmore statue of George Washington in profile. We pulled over and there, far above us in a gap in the mountains, we could see Washington's face from the side. The totally unexpected sight of his face from such a different angle was very surprising and powerful. In many ways, this will be the memory I will take away of Mount Rushmore.

We reached the Crazy Horse memorial site and saw our first view of this immense undertaking, as we drove up to the entrance gates.

Photos simply cannot convey the gargantuan size of the undertaking. The statue, when completed, will be 563ft high. Crazy Horse's head will be 87ft high, 27ft greater than the Mount Rushmore statues. The arm will be 263ft, his hand, 33ft and the head of the horse will be 219ft high. There will be one feather added to his head, made from 10 four feet sections of rock.

The project was started in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski, who died in 1982, and is now being continued by his wife, Ruth, and their children. It is totally privately funded and receives no support from the state of South Dakota or the US Government.

To show what the project will look like when it is finished, I took this photo of the 1/34th size model Ziolkowski made, with the mountain in the background.

We spent a good hour at the site before we drove south to Custer State Park and the wonderful Needles Highway. The Needles are spires of rock formations that are very beautiful and impressive.

There was one point, where we had just driven through an extremely narrow rock tunnel, when we came across this rock climber on the very top of a two hundred foot spire!

Next to the climber is the rock known as 'The Eye of the Needle'. The spire has been carved by the wind, so that there is a long slit that looks just like the eye of a needle.

One of the three extremely narrow rock tunnels.

We reached the end of the Needles Highway and drove back to our hotel, where we met up with the others. Kenny had been to the local GMC dealer to have his brakes repaired, as his rear disc pad had worn out and he needed new pads and discs fitted. I was amazed how quickly he had been able to get the work done.

We had a great meal at a local restaurant where Bob had a gigantic rack of ribs. The size of the rack surprised even Bob!!!

Tomorrow, we drive to the Badlands of South Dakota and then on to the north of the state before we enter North Dakota the day after that.