Part II - Day4 (July 29 Tuesday)

We've left South St. paul airport, on our way to South Dakota today.  Looking over the never ending farms, you think you are seeing the info use crop circles.

Actually, it is farm engineering at its best.  Massive watering systems travese huge expanses of fields!  

(additional pictures of these watering systems will be added later.)

Originally thought we would go to North Dakota first, but thunderstorms made that unadvisable - so we are flying direct to Rapid City, South Dakota.    We were above the clouds for the first 100 minutes, but finally had clear skies.  

Our first look at South Dakota.  There are still lots if farms , but the terrain is much different - farms between the various hills and mountains.    But still a lot of farming here, just east of rapid city (5 minute away - we are traveling at 125 knots per hour but still have a 17 knot headwind!  Lots of headwinds so far on this trip.  

A very different terrain as we prepare to descend into Rapid City.

It was actually pretty hard to see the airport.  We we very grateful for our modern GpS navigation tools.  However, the use of an old fashioned map really made the difference - as there are two airports in Rapid City.    

Ellsworth is North of the big highway,  and RAP  is south of the highway.   That made it quite a bit easier to spot which airport we wanted.

The plan is Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse today.  

Absolutely majestic. 

And of cours, Rick had to send a text!

Originally, Jefferson was supposed to be to the left of Washington, but they discovered that there was insufficient granite, so the overall design was altered to put Jefferson between Washington and Roosevelt.  And then they found a huge crack in the granite, and had to adjust Jefferson again, a little tilt up  and aside.  The crack now passes below his right eye all the way down to  his chin.  

Ethics was the original model, with the scale of 1 inch on the model equalling 1 foot on the mountain.  washington's mouth is 18 feet wide!

Next:  Crazy Horse.  Which dwarfs Mt. Rushmore

 All 4 presidents on Mt. Rushmore will fit in Crazy Horse's head!   They have been working on this for 67 years, and estimate they have 50-70 years until its finished.  It is massive.  Up close you really get the sense of the power of Crazy Horse and his horse.   And it is all a privately funded through donations.  

Dinner at Tally's Silver Spoon in Rapid City.  Very good, and very creative.  Best restaurant meal this trip!   (sorry, we were too hungry to take pictures.) 

Tomorrow, hopefully, a little sight seeing in the morning, then North Dakota and Montana, overnighting in Grand Falls, Montana.