Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore

Had a fantastic day today, one of the best so far, and I only rode a total of 95 miles, the shortest day so far.

It started with a short drive to the Wind cave complex, with over 150 miles of linked caves it is supposed to be the 4th largest complex in the world, and they keep finding new bits every year.

The ranger dept offer 4 different tours to the caves and I chose the Fairground tour as it was just about to start. The tour lasts 1 1/2 hours but only covers about 3/4 miles of the caves, but it was well worth it. It starts with a descent in a lift which takes you to a level 200ft below ground, so you start with a bang. The ground rock is limestone, and those of you that are familiar with english caves (cheddar for instance) would expect stalactites and stalagmites which are caused by the water dripping through the cave and leaching out the minerals from the rock. This cave is totally different as the atmosphere is dry with very little water flow, therefore, the caves are very dry with no "icicles" like english caves. What it does have is a feature called boxwood, and this cave has 95% of the worlds occurrence of this feature.

From there I rode to the Crazy Horse mountain carving. This is a work in progress and has been being carved by the same family for the past 56 years. When finished it will depict the Indian chief, Crazy Horse, sitting on his horse and pointing to his lands. Up to date they have blasted of millions of tons of rock and have completed the head, this being 9 storeys high alone. They have also made a start on the horses head. As this carving will be carved in the round, in other words you will be able to see about 275 degrees of it, you can imagine how long it will take, the reckon another 10 years before the horse head is finished. The finished statue will be 563ft high and 641 ft long. It looks fantastic now, you just stand and stare at the head. Take a look, google Crazy Horse Monument.

From there I rode to Mount Rushmore over the Needles Highway and the Iron Road Highway, what brilliant roads. Hairpin bend after hairpin bend, some with speeds of only 5mph (believe it, any faster and you don't get round!!.

The Iron Road Highway has some odd bits as well including a section called pigs tail bridges where the road goes round and under its self a couple of times and through a couple of narrow tunnels that frame Mount Rushmore in the exit arch. Brilliant.

Then onto Mount Rushmore and seeing the 4 Presidents heads carved into the mountain ( for comparison the four heads would easily fit into the head of Crazy Horse) Still what a brilliant sculpture. it could only be America. On the evening I went back to Rushmore for the lighting ceremony where the floodlight the heads, again typical America, music, national ant ham and flag lowering ceremony.

Don't think I can do anything else to top this day.

For Chris's information, still no phone signal on either sim card but will keep trying, for some reason I cannot load Manxnet either, strange. Will ring when I can x x