Mount Rushmore - Vacation 09 cont.

Can't pass up a family photo at Mount Rushmore!

We tried to make it look as if Danielle's head was part of the mountain. Didn't quite work;-)
Dani is the main reason we came. She has wanted to come here for a long time. The last time I was here was 13 years ago and Hailey was only 5 months old. She and I tagged along with my parents and Mike stayed home to work. It was fun to come back with the whole family!

Pretty impressive!


There were lots and lots of people their, mostly bikers, and yet it still didn't seem that crowded!

As I mentioned, there were bikers there. It happened to be "Sturges" week. Every first week in August thousands upon thousands of bikers descend upon a small town in So. Dakota and all surrounding towns and even states. We heard there were 400,000 bikers this year. Everywhere we traveled to there were bikers. Mike took this picture trying to make like he was taking it of his "girls" when actually he wanted a picture of the girl next to us. This picture doesn't do justice to the outfit, there was much less of it in the back. There were lots of outfits like this. The worst part of the trip was trying to distract the kids from some of the clothing or lack there of. :-) At one point we were walking up some stairs and Hailey tripped. One of the biggest, baddest, covered head to toe in tatoos, looking, biker bent down to help her out and said, "Are you okay hun?" So she decided that they weren't all as scary as they looked. We encountered bikers from everywhere. One guy we talked to had biked all the way from North Carolina. That's dedication! Some bikers really did look scary. Others looked like accountants trying to look the part of a biker.

Hiking along the trail under the monument.

Taking a rest in the shade. It was seriously hot. 93 degrees.

Danielle

Hailey

Trenton

We went back at night for the lighting ceremony. About 3 minutes after this picture the clouds decended and the rains came down in buckets. The outdoor movie was cancelled due to lightning. But they still lit up the monument.

The picture didn't turn out so great, but it really did look awsome at night! Thank you Dani for getting us here. Something we won't soon forget!! Bikers and all :-)

Between Mount Rushmore, and Jackson Hole, we stopped and my Aunt and Uncles house in Worland Wyoming. A very small town were my dad grew up. It was sure good to see Kevin and Devin again. It has been too long. I even got to see a couple of cousins. Thad and Bridget. They have grown up and graduated High School since I last visited.