The rocky faces

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Don't bother going to Mt. Rushmore. Really. Some national parks or monuments are worth it. The grandeur puts you in awe. Grand Canyon is one: you cannot imagine its immensity, even in front of it, but less so through a picture. Mount Rushmore? What you see is what you get. Your imagination is all you need. We were in and out of the park in less than 2 hours. There is little to do there, and not a lot to see besides the mountain. Sure, it's cool. But really not worth a trip.

We also went in to see Rapid City, the city nearby, and get lunch. We found a dinosaur park that was just a bunch of giant dinosaurs on a hill. To a bunch of nerdy 20-somethings, it was AWESOME.

What was also cool to me, despite the disagreements of my companions, was the second monument we went to. Nearby, commissioned by a group of Lakota Elders, a monument to Crazy Horse is being built. When completed, it will be immense. His head alone is the same as the entire monument at Mt. Rushmore. My friends ragged on the monument because the video we watched at the beginning was mostly about the (white) family who's building it. But in exploring the museum, I found the vast majority of it to be about the native americans, Crazy Horse, and their struggles. And while the movie did talk a lot about the family building it, it was about the monument. The video wasn't supposed to be about Crazy Horse or the native americans themselves, it was about the monument and its construction, which is, of course, inherently webbed with the family's story. They may well have focused on parts that weren't necessary, but I think it was fine. And the monument is truly huge. And quite controversial: they commissioned it without permission from his family, and many think he wouldn't have wanted it, since it's altering sacred land. Interesting food for thought.

Regardless, I had fun during the day. We then went back to town and played some giant chess and talked before going back to eat and sleep...we have an even longer day of driving tomorrow, on to our second to last stop, Minneapolis!

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