Rock History

As we ascended the black hills of South Dakota we made a sharp turn and were exposed to Mt. Rushmore Memorial. Nestled in the jagged peaks of the Black Hills sits Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln. Each with his own contributions that helped shape the country to what it is today.

You walk down the Avenue of Flags towards the monument with the sound of 56 flags slapping in the stiff breeze. As you walk, you look for your home state flag among all the states, District of Colombia and the Territories represented here.

A trail leads you through the tall Ponderosa Pine trees with glimpses of the granite faces. The sound of the wind cutting through the pine needles gives you a sense of peace. As you make your way to the base of the cliff, huge boulders that were thrown about when they were blasted or chiseled, tumbled down the mountain. Scars in these boulders show the amount of energy required to dislodge these rocks to reveal the faces beneath them. You look up at these huge portraits with a sense of pride knowing that you are walking through a part of history.

Once in the gift shop we met Nick Clifford. Many years ago he worked on the monument. He chiseled the chin of Abraham Lincoln and other features of Roosevelt. Today, his still strong hands greets you with a firm handshake as his soft voice retells stories of working on the monument and getting instructions from the designer and sculptor Gutzon Borglum.

The small town of Keystone, South Dakota is only a few miles down the hill from the National Park. With a population of only 311 those numbers swell when the bike rally in Sturgis goes into full bloom in August. The area gets over 600,000 people on their bikes. For now, the city is a quite oasis for a cold beverage and sitting on the porch watching the traffic crawl by. Imagining how it used to be a hundred years ago when the gold rush ruled the land.