North by Northwest

Or how did those big heads get there? Yesterday we went to the Borgym(sic) museum in downtown Keystone to learn about the artist's life and times and then up to Mt. Rushmore to see the famous granite heads of our Presidents. What a creation. Because of the height of the sculptures, all the views are a good bit away. The trail around the base takes you to many different angles. The scope of the work is staggering. The Roosevelt head is recessed because they had to remove over a hundred feet of granite to get to stone that was crack free and durable. The artist wanted to remove the rubble at the base from all the construction, but that was never done. He actually died before the completion of the last head and his son completed the work. His original plan called for the sculptures to go to the waist and Washington has a waistcoat on. He used a staff of unskilled laborers whom he trained and highly praised for their effort and desire to learn. He used dynamite for the bulk of the removal and then jack hammers and shaping tools to finish. A safety advocate, no one died and only one man was injured badly enough to miss any work during the whole operation. He had to be a genius to figure it all out.
From there we went to Rapid City where Dana shopped for a little bit while I had the oil changed in the truck. It was a nice little town.
Had Tom and Joyce Gerlitz over for dinner last night, then went over to their site for a campfire. The weather here has been a mixture of sun and clouds with wind and a bit cool. It was in the mid forties yesterday about 9:oo am. The wind finally stopped about 8pm last night.
For anyone with comments, the procedure is fairly simple. You need an active e-mail address and when you sign in, follow the prompts to establish a google account if don't already have one. There's no charge for the account.
Our campsite offers all you can eat pancakes every morning from 7-10. It's almost as cheap as my normal Cheerio's with half a banana breakfast.