December 2020 Black Hills Adventure Day 2 3/3

With the Black Hills visible on the horizon we start the third part of the day. If you have not read the previous blogs on our December 2020 Black Hills Adventure, I would highly encourage you to go back and read our previous vlogs. We just left Wall Drug and are headed for Rapid City. We see where our hotel is along the highway and we continue on to downtown. Rapid City is called the City of Presidents for the nearby Mount Rushmore as well as the statues of the presidents on the corners of the streets downtown. We drove through the downtown area and saw the school that we would be touring in two days. We found a free parkins spot and walked to the Firehouse Brewing Company where we had eaten on our original trip to South Dakota. The food was excellent, I had my first bison burger.

After our meal we went out to walk around downtown for a little bit. It was only 4:00 but it was getting pretty dark. These are some of the shortest days of the year. We walked east and saw President John Adams, my dad’s favorite president. They had a very cool skating rink at the corner where John Adams is. Another block down we reached my favorite president, Franklin Denalo Roosvelt. Took some pictures and made our way back to the car. We stopped quickly in a shop where they had a giant perplexus game, something I played with when I was younger. We decided that we would head up Mount Rushmore to see it with the lights.

We headed up into the Black Hills and could see the lights of Rapid City to our left. Further down the road were some of the attractions advertised on I-90 through South Dakota: The Reptile Garden and later the Bear Country U.S.A. Attractions that are great for kids, but not for us. It was dark now, there was no sign of the surrounding beauty of the Black Hills. Half an hour later we arrive at the tourist town of Keystone. Normally, there would be people everywhere in the shops and cross the street taking forever to get through the town. In December, the only people and car in the town were us. Traveling in December was something we had never really done before so this was a bizarre experience. We turned the corner in the town and looked up and got our first glimpse of the magnificent monument. We all start to get really excited, this is one of favorite places on the planet.

The road begins to rise in elevation as we pass the Mount Rushmore National Memorial sign. At the intersection we turn into the parking lot. In my opinion, the Mount Rushmore parking lot is the best in America. It is so organized and easy to navigate. We did not have to pay because of our late hour and it is the offseason. We found a parking lot and headed up the stairs.

Here is where things start to get a little strange. We get to the top of the stairs and the front entrance gate is blocked off and under renovation. The road in front of the monument was completely dark and it was hard to see. I got out my cell phone flashlight just so we could see. We felt like we were breaking into the park. To the left of the gate was another dark path past the construction and it contained the section with the flags of the states and territories of the country. The right half of the walk had construction walls up. We saw some other people at the Grand Terrace View and the gift shop was open so we were glad we were not breaking in.

We would stand looking up at the glorious monument to democracy. One can not help but feel extremely patriotic standing before the head of some of our nation's greatest leaders.