Today we are headed to Mount Rushmore. It looks like a beautiful day to go there.
Oops, it is quite foggy up here. Maybe it is not such a great day for a visit to Mount Rushmore after all. Guess we will take a fake selfie instead.
Since we had no other plans for the day we decided to try patience. Maybe the fog will roll back.
Oh good, look. The fog is dissipating! Maybe it will be ok after all.
Well that is disappointing. The fog is coming back in.
After about an hour and several cycles of excitement and distress, there was finally a slightly foggy chance to see all four presidents at once.
Quick, lets take a selfie. It is already getting foggy again. This may be as good as it gets.
Maybe, Maybe, this is finally it. You can actually see some details of their faces!
It took almost an hour and a half for the fog to finally lift. After it was over, we decided it was fun playing hide and seek with the presidents. We retook our first foggy photo once we could see the faces on the mountain. We also got a much clearer selfie than our fake phone page selfie. Later, we discovered we took almost twice as many pictures in the fog trying to get a clean shot as we did after the fog lifted.
This was our best photo of all four presidents. We had never noticed before that George Washington’s carving included his neck, lapels, and shoulders. The detail in these faces is incredible when you realize it was mostly carved with dynamite.
In this wider view you can see the massive landslide of rock that was blasted away. The boulders look small at this distance. It you look back at some of the foggy pictures you get a better idea of their actual size.
Once we had a clear view of Mount Rushmore, we took photos from many angles. We included at least one artsy framing picture and a couple of real close ups. When you see the size and the details, it is no surprise that it took 14 years to complete the project.
We stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel in Keystone, not far from Mount Rushmore. The hotel is a small Theodore Roosevelt museum. They have at least 16 Roosevelt quotes mounted on the walls of the hotel. They were all good quotes. These two were the ones with the least glare.
In spite of the emotional ups and downs created by the foggy morning, our trip to Mount Rushmore was a success.