Day 25: Keystone & Rapid City, SD

Today we stayed pretty busy on our last day in South Dakota.  After breakfast, we went to the Crazy Horse Monument.  It is a very interesting story.  The monument was built as a legacy to the Native American people and was started in 1948 by one man, Korczak Ziolkowski.  For the first five years, he worked on it alone every day, climbing up 741 steps to the top and when his old air compressor would die on him, he had to climb all the way down and start it again.  One day, he did this 9 times!  He was determined and his entire family joined in on the project.  He passed away some years ago and the monument is still under construction with no estimated date for completion.  The head is finished and they are working on the arm and the head of his horse.  This monument is so massive, all four heads from Mt. Rushmore could fit into the head of Crazy Horse.  Here are a few photos:

Our next stop was a quick trip back to Mount Rushmore so I could get some better photos in the daylight.  I didn't feel my others did it justice!

After our second Mount Rushmore visit, we drove to Rapid City which is called the city of Presidents.  All former presidents are represented on street corners by bronze statues.  Lily did the scavenger hunt where there are certain items the presidents are holding or are on their person that you have to locate and you get a free presidential soda.  It was interesting to see all the statues personifying the different presidents.  

We also visited the Pawnseum, a combination pawn shop and museum.  Kevin loved it!  He bought some binoculars and we saw an original Michael Jackson glove (eat your heart out Walt!) as well as the worlds smallest dog which looked like a toy!

We drove back to Keystone for dinner after debating on whether or not to drive to Sturgis to see all the bikers.  Lily wanted to go but the boys didn't and Kevin and I were on the fence.  We were told you have to see it to believe it but we also knew that traffic would be crazy and the kids might see some things we didn't want them to see, so we passed it up and bought some 75th anniversary Sturgis tees in Keystone.

Today we are driving all day to Omaha, Nebraska.  Thanks for traveling along with us!