Who are the four presidents ... ?

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Traveling with the rest of the Wiriadisastras without Fika was very interesting. We decided to road trip to South Dakota from Iowa, it was a good distance trip and a good cause as well; none of us had been in South Dakota before. I started to do a little research on what to do in the state, but of course I've always had wanted to see the Mt. Rushmore; who doesn't? But anyway, we drove though the Badlands, where the "devil" supposed to pass, thus it was named "les mauvaises Terres" - the Badlands, by French explorers. It almost felt like passing through movie stage, with fake colorful hills and unreal, just like Daly paintings.

Quote from Frank Lloyd Wright,

what I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious otherwhere - a distant architecture, ethereal, only touched with a sense of Egyptian, Mayan drift and silhouette.

TAhe highlight of the trip was the Black Hills, the Mt. Rushmore: housing four presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abe Lincoln). I was a little disappointed with the size of the faces - I thought they would be so much bigger and grand, eventhough the scale was unbelievable. Each eyes are 11 feet wide, and the length of the noses are 26 feet long.

Another exhibition of cliff carving taking place nearby, it is a project called the Crazy Horse that would illustrate the Native Indian chief on his horse. It is interesting to see the massive sculpture starts to take place, and it is said to be done sometime in 2050. I am planning on coming back that time, perhaps with my grandchildrens and great-grandchildrens.

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Photos

Badlands terrain
Badlands terrain.

Mt. Rushmore
Me standing in front of the Mt. Rushmore.

Crazyhorse
Crazyhorse in the distance background cliff.

Bison
Pretty stupid, but fortunately no bison attacked me.