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Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks For our July 2006 vacation, we decided to take a Tauck tour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We were on the southbound tour which starts in Rapid City, South Dakota, and ends in Salt Lake City, Utah. Although this tour is one of Tauck’s most popular, we were very lucky because we were with a group that totaled only sixteen people. Below
are a few pictures of Rapid City. We arrived there at around 3:00
p.m. on June 30, checked into our hotel, and then walked around
the small downtown area until it was time to have dinner with our
tour group. |
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| We were surprised by the Radisson Hotel in Rapid City. The hotel was recently redecorated, and our room was good. | |||||||||
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We started our bus tour the next day with a visit to the Borglum Historical Center in Keystone, SD, and then on to Mt. Rushmore. Gutzon Borglum was the artist who conceived and supervised the carving of Mt. Rushmore. I didn’t find the Borgulm Historical Center very interesting, and I would rather have had more time at Mt. Rushmore. |
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This is a picture of our tour bus. Designed to hold over 40 people in comfort, we were VERY comfortable because we were a group of sixteen. | ||||||||
| There’s not much to say about Mt. Rushmore, except that it’s one of our country’s most famous landmarks. I took these pictures as I walked the Presidential Trail. | |||||||||
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Visitors to Mt. Rushmore often say that the carvings look smaller than they expected. What they don’t realize is that a huge mountain surrounds the carvings and makes them look smaller. The picture to the left gives you and idea of immensity of the carvings. Two workers were standing on the top of Teddy Roosevelt’s head, setting up fireworks for the 4th of July celebration. | ||||||||
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"...I had seen the photographs, I had seen the drawings, and I had talked with those who are responsible for this great work, and yet I had no conception, until about ten minutes ago, not only of its magnitude, but also its permanent beauty and importance. ...I think that we can perhaps meditate on those Americans of 10,000 years from now...meditate and wonder what our descendants - and I think they will still be here - will think about us. Let us hope... that they will believe we have honestly striven every day and generation to preserve a decent land to live in and a decent form of government to operate under." President Franklin Roosevelt |
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| We spent about two hours at Mt. Rushmore, and then continued on to the Crazy Horse Memorial. If you’re planning a visit to Mt. Rushmore, you should also visit the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is very close by. Although the carving is far from finished, the museum and grounds are very interesting. | |||||||||
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| Inside the museum above and below left. Bottom right: The sculpture in the foreground is what the carving on the mountain will look like when it is completed. | |||||||||
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Conceived
by Korczak Ziolkowski, the Crazy Horse Memorial will be the largest
stone carving in the world when it is completed. When will the carving be completed? Our tour guide said that it may never be. |
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| From the Crazy Horse Memorial, we took a long drive to the Ranch at Ucross for an overnight stay. The Ranch at Ucross is really not a working ranch, which was fine with us. Our cabin was well-appointed, and the food and service were great. In the morning we were able to take a short horse ride that turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. | |||||||||
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| Early the next morning before leaving the ranch, we we went on a trail ride. Click on the video to the left. The video is a little shaky...but hey, I was on a horse!! | |||||||||
| After our ride, we left for the Bighorn Mountains and Cody, WY |  |
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| Check out the Black and White pictures of the trip: | |||||||||
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