May 15, 2009 Mt Rushmore and area

We started out to drive the Spearfish Canyon trail and weather took a sudden turn toward the bad. High winds and a spattering of rain made it difficult to travel, let alone see the sights, so we headed back toward the campground. The winds lowered some and the rains just about quit so we decided to take a peek at Mt. Rushmore. We were going to take a quick look and return in a couple of days when it warmed up some and the winds were scheduled to drop. We traveled through our first tunnel of this area - picturesque. Mt. Rushmore itself is awesome! We will be back soon and often. We, not only will go during the day, but will follow suggestions from friends to see the night show when the sculptures are lighted. This mountainous area seems to be all part of several gigantic rocks. They are huge and beautiful. Mt. Rushmore can be seen when traveling through tunnels on Iron Mountain Road. It is just too bad that the tunnel is clear and the sculptures are washed out in this photo. It is perfectly centered when seen from the tunnel. I believe that we ran out of "oohs" and "aahs" somewhere near Omaha, we had seen so many great sights, but we keep trying to verbalize what we are seeing. Going up and down these mountains brings us to many switchbacks. One shot here shows three levels of roadway, the one we were on and two that we were heading for. Our GPS map even showed the road crossing itself on two or three occasions on Iron Mountain Road and we discovered these to be Bow Tie Bridges, ones that curved back over or under itself. Carol saw here first eagle today that she was sure was actually an eagle. She snapped it when it was high overhead and was not able to snap it when it came closer. Of course, we saw our share of deer again today. And also we saw some more horses "just horsing around" on our way home. We found another gem of a restaurant in Keystone, SD, just down the road from Mt. Rushmore. It is Peggy's Place at 434 Hwy 16A, Keystone. Peggy makes most of her items "from scratch" with quality products. She told us she even got a letter from a 10 year old girl saying that she had the "best ever peanut butter and jelly sandwich." She laughed and said that she does not use the usual restaurant bulk products in her cooking. Carol has made her own spaghetti sauce for years and finds it hard to order it from a restaurant. She had some here and it was great. For a day that started out wrongly, it surely ended up great.