05/11/2019 - Mount Rushmore & Rapid City / USA (100 Kilometer)

Today we slept in and had a leisurely breakfast. The rest of our morning was spent in Mount Rushmore. This National Memorial depicts the most important and symbolic US presidents of its time of creation. The monument was built starting in 1927 and completed in 1941. It showcases the presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Each of the heads is 18 meters tall. They are so large that we were able to view the gigantic monument from below.

Near Mount Rushmore, another huge monument is being carved into the rock. Crazy Horse. A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, who was already a brave and full-fledged warrior as a teenager. Work on the monument began in 1948 and so far, only the head of the Indian is visible. It is estimated to take another 100 years to complete. The sculpture will then show Crazy Horse sitting on a horse, measuring 195 meters long and 172 meters high. We won't live to see that.

We drove back to Rapid City and took a look around the second largest city in the state of South Dakota. At almost every intersection on the main street in downtown, you can find one of a total of 43 life-size bronze figures depicting US presidents. We visited a store that sells all kinds of Native American items and a gun store. That would be so forbidden in our country. We also passed by a historic fire department building and even a piece of the Berlin Wall made it to Rapid City in 1996 and is now displayed here.