Saturday, July 18, 2009

More from the Black Hills (SD pt 3)

The Needles Highway, a scenic byway that loops through Custer State Park area of the Black Hills. A few very narrow tunnels are long this route that only allow one vehicle through at a time, from either direction. I tried to get a picture of that, giving you a visual idea of just how narrow I really mean, but for whatever reason it just wouldn't be accepted when I tried to upload it. A couple of the pictures show the "needles" formed by rock giving the area its name. And then there is the picture of me WAY out on the rocks. It was a difficult treck with a lot of deep crevices between rocks to get that far...even more difficult trying to get back up and out of there. Then you also see the boys and I where we had scaled a rock outcropping. See? Men and boys are both really simple. Give us some rocks, and nothing else, and we are perfectly entertained. When my wife told the boys it was time to move on they were disappointed, especially Buggy who hates to let go of a good thing. Secretly, I was a bit miffed as well. Like I said...simple.




I got a picture of my wife and the boys in front of Mt. Rushmore. This was their first time in this part of the country, and here at the national monument. If you look REAL close at this upward shot of President Jefferson you'll notice he didn't get his nose cleaned out before posing for his portrait in rock. Nevertheless, Mrs. Jefferson was disappointed that it turned out too big to take back home to hang up in the parlor. She was particularly impressed with Mr Borglum's work.

2 comments:

American Elephant said...

fun pics! Did you make it to Montana and Yellowstone? Love the pics of Mt Rushmore, especially up Jefferson's nose. One non-partisan and three Republicans. Gotta love that. :)

I think I said before, the closest I've ever been to Mt. Rushmore is watching the movie North by Northwest. (great Hitchcock flick if you like older movies)

Mookie said...

AE-

We skipped Montana, as plans changed after we got to Deadwood, SD....in the last 20 years it went from having some family things to do, to prettymuch just a gamblers paradise....we moved on to Wyoming, and after missing a campspot at the foot of the Bighorns, we just went ahead and went on to Jay's place, and saw Yellowstone and all that, including my now infamous bear poking incident....I'll do more posting on the Wyoming side of things later today or this week.

I saw the signs saying 'area where North by Northwest was filmed'. I'm an older movie kind of guy (I have the largest John Wayne collection of anyone in my generation I'm sure), so I'll have to check it out.