Another full day for the boys in the Bravada, starting in Keystone, SD, heading to see Mount Rushmore. After taking in the dramatic lighting of George, Abe, Teddy and
Tom the night before, we went to see what the monument had to offer the daytime visitor. One big difference I noticed from the night before was our parking spot on the front sidewalk was no longer available. Judging from the license plates on the cars, there were a lot of visitors from the Dakotas, Nebraska and Minnesota at "The Rush". (I wonder if any not-so-clever marketing people have tried calling it "The Rush" yet?) We stepped out of our car and I offered to take a picture of a family of Russian (or Eastern European?) tourists that were walking from the lot towards the monument. The American family that I made the offer to was not amused. (Bad joke, sorry.) I only offered to the Russians to take a picture in front of the monument, for which they happily posed. They smiled and laughed, I nodded without understanding anything they said and thought about how it is always exciting to see what kind of camera equipment people from other countries are sporting.My thoughts were wrong. Their camera broke the rule. It was the same point and shoot I was using and not that exciting... Anyhow..., the
place was a little more crowded than it had been at 11pm the night before. We made our way up to the overlook and recreated shots taken a million times before by people from every populated continent in the world. It is hard not to do. Rushmore is so impressive that you want to take it in. If you have a camera, you have to put your stamp on things. Even though every new-to-you picture you decide to take can easily be found on the internet. As a matter of fact, it can likely be purchased with more flattering light and sharper focus on a postcard being sold in the gift shop less than 100 feet to your right. But I digress.
For the record. I did not see this shot of Abe Lincoln on a postcard in the gift shop. Probably for good reason.Those of you who are Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant or Eve Marie Saint
fans, some scenes from the the movie North by Northwest were set around Rushmore and kept popping into my head as I walked through the park. Remember the part where Eve shoots Cary in the cafeteria? I was there and it was pretty cool. I never saw the cool mansion from the movie but the walk around the woods surrounding the park seemed very familiar. There is a small trail (using the term loosely) that meanders through the wooded area between Rushmore and the gift shop/promenade area. It is short, flat and paved or decked the entire way but offers a few new glimpses of the monument you wouldn't get otherwise. It also takes you by some of the buildings where the designer stayed while working on the giant sculpture.Here are a few pictures taken from the trail. Can we interest you in a picture of the presidents in a Sepia tone?
Finally we resorted to taking pictures with our heads in place of one of the four presidents. Is that Teddy Roosevelt in a black baseball cap? The resemblance is striking.
After checking out the visitor center and gift shops for postcards of the photos we had just taken, we prepared to hit the road again. 
I ran into this guy while we were leaving the parking lot. He needed a ride to Rapid City. I felt kind of bad because I told him we weren't going that way. We were headed towards Rapid, but I didn't want him to see all the mountain-goat-hair sweaters we had just purchased from a vendor up the road. He seemed happy when I told him he could likely get a ride from a very nice Russian family heading that way.
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