Day 3 – Sunday, August 8th
We woke up in Nebraska very near to our first destination, Carhenge – Nebraska’s answer to Stonehenge, in Alliance Nebraska. The pictures speak for themselves. The artist is a Nebraskan native who worked in England for several years and decided to bring a bit of it back home with him. Some of the pieces serve as a time capsule of sorts. One installation is a tribute to the four phases of wheat – planting, growing, maturing, and laying barren during winter.
We saw a lot of cornfields…there were so many cornfields. Corn was not the only crop we saw but it definitely was the dominant crop. There is so much corn grown in the US. But thankfully the landscape was broken by a sea of yellow every once in a while – a sea of sunflowers.
While at Carhenge, we met an Ohio couple on their way back from hiking in Colorado. We shared that we were on our way to Mt. Rushmore and they suggested we travel through Custer State Park to get there. They mentioned that it was a scenic route and we would have the opportunity to see wild game animals like elk and bison. So we adjusted our Google maps route and headed toward Custer State Park in South Dakota. We did not see many wild animals there. We did take a snapshot of a bison but we’re pretty sure it was on a ranch. The wildest thing we saw were “hogs” – seems like we plan our trip to South Dakota during the Sturgis Bike Rally.
Around 2:00 p.m. MDT, we made it to our second national park, Mount Rushmore. As we approached the entrance to Mt. Rushmore, the roads roared of biker caravans heading to and from the Sturgis Rally. They too wanted to take in the magnificent engineering artistry that is Mt. Rushmore. We parked above the roaring bikers reserved parking lot, made a right turn, took a few steps up, and marveled at the monument of the four presidents.
We paid for the handheld devices used for the self-guided tour. We trekked along the 0.6-mile, 422-staired Presidential Trail that takes you away from the crowds and up close to the monument. (We realized long ago that taking a tour provides a unique perspective that you can’t get from just walking around.) During the tour, we learned more about the monument’s artist, his family, the construction, and the controversy, politically and spiritually. We also partook of the Jefferson ice cream, per the suggestion of Kedra’s co-worker. (It wasn’t Blue Bell but its historical significance made it special.)
