Custer State Park — July 28 to Aug 1 (Part 2)
Before concluding our day around the park and at the Chief Crazy Horse Memorial, we took a trip to Mt. 
Rushmore to scope out the lay of the land. As we drove up, the four Presidents were obvious from many angles. Nancy was speechless. She was actually seeing “her peeps”; seeing the monument that was near the top of her Bucket List.
Fran parked the car so that Nancy could visibly commune with the Presidents while Fran made a quick reconnaissance of the entire memorial just before closing time. It was quickly determined that Nancy’s mobility scooter would be the vehicle of the day and would easily get around the memorial.
With that information in hand, we headed back to camp happy, excited, introspective, and quietly reviewing all that we had seen and experienced that day. In preparation for the next day’s adventures, we removed the heavy trailer hitch from the truck, unloaded the mobility scooter lift we had transported from Oakland in anticipation of this day, and with effort, inserted the lift into the hitch receiver of the truck. We then brought the scooter around, connected it to the lift, and up she went! We were ready to attack Mt. Rushmore in the morning.
We arrived early in the morning and 
were rewarded with fewer people than one might expect. We enjoyed the Avenue of the States or Avenue of the Flags – it’s called both. It provides a grand, granite entrance way to the primary viewing stage for the Memorial.
We thoroughly enjoyed the Memorial, the gift shop, the Sculptor’s
Studio, and the Plaza, including having a great hotdog and a drink outside under the umbrellas while viewing the mountain. We viewed the four Presidents from all angles including taking in the part of the President’s Walk that could accommodate Nancy’s scooter. No matter the angle, it is an impressive sight and one that brought tears to the eyes of many viewers around us…and to our own.
A couple of things of interest about the creation of the faces out of granite. It took from 1927 to 1944 to complete. When the sculptor, John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, was drawing up his sketches and creating his models, he strived to understand the character of each man he was sculpting. Apparently he struggled most with George Washington, trying to find a way to accurately depict his stoic character as a leader and a hero, while also reflecting his warmth as a man. He finally accomplished this by slightly off-setting one shoulder a bit into the mountain while leaving the face bold, straight, and uncompromised.
I have often wondered why those four Presidents were chosen. The museum exhibit tells us the choice was apparently Borglum’s. For him, they represented the emergence of the concept (Washington), the beginning of the Republic and its growth (Jefferson), the equality of all of the people and the preservation of the union (Lincoln), and the future of the union and conservation of the land (Roosevelt). https://www.nps.gov/moru/learn/historyculture/why-these-four-presidents.htm
Like all sculptors of massive pieces, Borglum worked from scale models. Apparently, he changed his original scale model nine different times to accommodate the characteristics of the rock surface, including cracks and imperfections that were only obvious once the blasting and drilling began. The process he and his team used to move the measurements and respective points and distances of the individual facial features was amazing and almost beyond comprehension, given both the primitive nature of the process and the complexity of its application.
Borglum died in 1941. His son, Lincoln, a world renowned sculptor in his own right, finished the sculpture to its current state. According to the exhibits in the museum, John Borglum was not only the sculptor, but also the project’s most ardent advocate, often spending time in Washington D.C., fund-raising and generally harassing Senators and Congressman into continued political and financial support of the project.
We concluded our visit to this American icon, to this major item on Nancy’s bucket list, appropriately impressed, happy, and satisfied. We arrived back at our camp and prepared to start our journey North and then to turn west and the trip to Glacier National Park.