I’ve heard so many times that South Dakota is one of the most beautiful places to visit in the United States!
…and so we have decided to spend a month there in August 2021! The first thing I had to decide is where our central location to live should be. I had to determine where most of the attractions to see were located by checking Google Maps and other travel sites. I really didn’t need to determine all of the details but where most of the things to see were located.
I decided that the Southwest area of the state is the ideal place for us to park our RV motorhome to live for the month. From that area of the state, we can easily visit most areas in a day. When we’re looking for a place to stay, our first requirement is a good price with ideally some grass for our dogs to walk. As it turns out, I wasn’t able to get in the ideal locations because the cost was too high. Instead, we are staying a bit away from where I wanted to be for a savings of about $400! Location… Location… Location… and that’s where it costs a lot! Hahahaha…
We typically like to tour around about 3 to 4 days a week and then relax 3 to 4 days a week so in a month of about 29 available days, we will get in about 16 full days of activities. I prioritize what we would like to see and do from a list of what is available. Here is my current list of things we plan to see and do!
- National Parks and Memorials
- Mount Rushmore National Memorial
- Wind Cave National Park
- Minuteman Missile National Historic Sites
- Badlands National Park
- Jewel Cave National Monument
- Devil’s Tower National Monument - Which is actually located in Wyoming but it’s close to the area we’ll be in
- Crazy Horse Memorial
- Mount Roosevelt Memorial
- Scenic Drives and Byways (ref: TravelSouthDakota and VisitRapidCity)
- 70-mile Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway in the Black Hills of western South Dakota threading its way around the Pigtail Bridges, through one-lane rock-walled tunnels, and ascending to the uppermost heights of the Needles and Harney Peak in Custer State Park
- Native American National and State Scenic Byway running north and south through central South Dakota
- Spearfish Canyon State and National Forest Service Scenic Byway thousand-foot-high limestone walls following the curves and contours of Spearfish Creek that carved through the limestone walls of Spearfish Canyon many millennia ago, this 19-mile scenic byway framed by spruce, pine, aspen, birch, and oak trees climbing the ascending cliff walls consistently named one of the best waterfall drives in North America
- Wind through pine-covered hills, rolling prairies, and red-walled canyons. Experience a traffic jam caused by buffalo, meet the popular “begging burros” or spot bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, deer, elk, coyote, prairie dog, and numerous bird species on the Wildlife Loop State Scenic Byway
- Badlands Loop State Scenic Byway some describe it as lunar-like, the Native Americans were the first to call it “bad lands,” or “mako sica.” Breathtaking rock formations, other-worldly hiking trails, and 16 designated scenic overlooks on a 39-mile loop
- Needles Highway and Scenic Byway was completed in 1922 and includes 14 miles of sharp turns, narrow tunnels, and towering granite spires.
- Iron Mountain Road redefined what a road could be. Climbing 17 miles from Custer State Park to the entrance of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, the Iron Mountain Road experience includes 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, 3 pigtail bridges, 3 tunnels, 2 road splits, and outstanding views of four famous granite faces!
- U.S. Highway 385, also known as Black Hills Parkway, is one of the longest roads in the Black Hills. Highway 385 will take one past the breathtaking vistas of Pactola Reservoir and Sheridan Lake.
- Off Interstate 90, Vanocker Canyon Road winds southwest for 17 miles to the tiny historic community of Nemo. This hidden beauty provides a glowing backdrop scattered with birch and aspen trees, along with some twists and turns not quite as sharp as some of the other drives in the area.
- Skyland Drive cruising high over Rapid City for two miles, you’ll enjoy beautiful views to the east and west, discover the residents of Dinosaur Park, and the trailheads of Skyline Wilderness Area. In addition to the depression-era dinosaurs, spot a historic feature known as “Hangman’s Tree”, a dead pine tree on the edge of the drive where allegedly three men were hung by citizens for stealing horses in 18771. Lakes to kayak
- Big Stone Lake
- Legion Lake
- Stockade Lake
- Sylvan Lake1. Unique fun places to visit and check out!
- Spirit Mound State Historic Prairie
- Geographic Center of the Nation Monument
- Giant Prairie Dog Statue
- The World’s Only Corn Palace
- Art Alley
- Skeleton Man Walking Skeleton Dinosaur
- The Mammoth Site
- Devil’s Gulch Park
- Sturgis City
- Deadwood City
Whew! I hope we can see at least 80 to 90% of these cool things!
Mount Rushmore is a fascinating place with many very interesting facts about it.
- Mount Rushmore is in the Black Hills in Keystone, South Dakota
- The idea of creating a sculpture in the Black Hills was dreamed up in 1923 by South Dakota historian Doane Robinson. He wanted to find a way to attract tourists to the state.
- Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture’s design and oversaw the project’s execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum
- The mountain that Borglum chose to carve was known to the Lakota as the “Six Grandfathers.”
- In 1930, the United States Board on Geographic Names officially recognized it as Mount Rushmore.
- The sculpture features the 60-foot (18 m) heads of Presidents George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
- The actual carving was done by a team of over 400 men.
- Remarkably, no one died during construction.
- The men who worked on the mountain were miners who had come to the Black Hills looking for gold.
- Although they weren’t artists, they did know how to use dynamite and jackhammers.
- Mount Rushmore once had an amateur baseball team.
- Because Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum were so competitive, they would often hire young men for their baseball skills rather than their carving and drilling skills.
- In 1939, the Rushmore Memorial team took second place at the South Dakota amateur baseball tournament.
- The image of the sculpture was mapped onto the mountain using an intricate “pointing machine” designed by Borglum.
- It was based on a 1:12 scale model of the final sculpture.
- 90% of the mountain was carved with dynamite, and more than 450,000 tons of rock were removed.
- Afterward, fine carving was done to create a surface about as smooth as a concrete sidewalk.
- The drillers and finishers were lowered down the 500-foot face of the mountain in bosun chairs held by 3/8-inch-thick steel cables.
- Workers at the top of the mountain would hand crank a winch to raise and lower the drillers.
- If they went too fast, the person in the bosun chair would be dragged up the mountain on their face.
- Young boys (known as call boys) were hired to sit on the side of the mountain to shout messages back and forth to the operators to speed up or slow down.
- Each president’s face is 60 feet high.
- The faces appear in the order: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln.
- Jefferson was originally intended to be on Washington’s right.
- After nearly two years of work on Jefferson, the rock was found to be unsuitable and the partially completed face was “erased” from the mountainside using dynamite.
- Washington’s face was completed in 1934.
- Jefferson’s in 1936.
- Lincoln was finished in 1937.
- In 1937, a bill was introduced to Congress to add the image of women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony to the mountain.
- Congress then passed a bill requiring only the heads that had already been started be completed.
- In 1938, Gutzon Borglum secretly began blasting a Hall of Records in the mountain behind the heads.
- The Hall of Records was meant to be a vault containing the history of the nation and vital documents like the Constitution.
- Congress found out about the project and demanded Borglum use the federal funding for the faces, not the Hall of Records.
- Gutzon reluctantly stopped working on the hall in 1939 but vowed to complete it.
- That same year, the last face — of Theodore Roosevelt — was completed.
- Sculptor Gutzon Borglum died in March of 1941, leaving the completion of the monument to his son Lincoln.
- The carving was originally meant to include the bodies of the presidents down to their waists.
- Funding ran out and the monument was declared complete on October 31, 1941.
- Overall, the project cost $989,992.32 and took 14 years to finish.
- It’s estimated only 6 years included actual carving, while 8.5 years were consumed with delays due to weather and lack of funds.
- Rushmore’s resident mountain goats are descendants of a herd that was gifted to Custer State Park by Canada in 1924.
- They evidently escaped (naughty goats!).
- Every night, Mount Rushmore gets illuminated for two hours.
- Since illumination can impact the natural environment (think lost moths, among other things), a new high-tech LED lighting system was installed in 2015 to minimize the negative effects of lighting Mount Rushmore.
- Some believe you can see an elephant, or at least the stone face of an elephant if you look to the right of Lincoln. Others believe if you look at a picture of the mountain rotated 90 degrees, you can see another face.
- Mount Rushmore is granite, which erodes roughly 1 inch every 10,000 years.
- Since each of the noses is about 240 inches long, they might last up to 2.4 million years before they completely wear away.
- After about 500,000 years, the faces will likely have lost some of their definition. But at this rate, the basic shape of the presidents’ heads might last up to 7 million years.
- Numerous things are being done to preserve Mount Rushmore. This has included installing 8,000 feet of camouflaged copper wire in 1998 to help monitor 144 hairline cracks. The copper wire was replaced with fiber optic cable in 2009.
- So far preservation efforts have been successful. All four noses, chins, and foreheads (as well as all 8 eyes, nostrils, lips, and ears) are intact!
- Nearly three million people visit Mount Rushmore each year. The busiest months are June, July, and August. May, September, and October are less busy and popular months to visit as well.
I have actually been to Mount Rushmore but it was when I was 16 years old! …over 40 years ago. In my search of photos from that trip, I found a picture of my mother (whom I’ve now lost) standing in front of the monument. It will be wonderful to see this again and remember that trip with my parents 
*This post is part of the #StateChallenge Meetups from Team USA, hosted by @Denise_Barlock and @Kwiksatik *
Note: Now that this post is complete, I’m going to be ready to visit and enjoy South Dakota!!! …wearing masks and social distancing