The drive up to South Dakota was gorgeous. I've never seen scenery like this before.
The rocks were so interesting!!
We also drove through areas of all of these dead trees...it was a little creepy
We saw this random window painting for LSU when we were driving through Wyoming...
Black Hills National Forest was had amazing views!!
This was the view as we were driving up the mountain to see Mount Rushmore!!
It was absolutely breathtaking!!!
Josh and I both agreed that it lived up to the hype and was so amazing to actually see in person. We also learned a lot by walking around the museum and exhibits they had.
We took a walk around the Presidential Trail and were able to get even closer to the sculpture!
I loved seeing the sculpture with the fall colors around it!
This was the compressor that they used when electrical power wasn't enough to power their drills. It reminded me of Daddy's compressor even though this one was a little bigger :)
The views were amazing from every angle. This one is from the Sculptor's studio where Gutzon Borglum built a 1/12 size model to make sure everything was perfect before he started the actual sculpture.
The studio was closed for the season but here's the George Washington side of the model. I love this picture because you can see the reflection of the actual sculpture as well. Photo credits to my husband, Josh Saunders.
When walking up to the observation deck, all of the states and their flags are on display so Josh and I had to take pictures by our home states of course!
Here's the artist who created Mount Rushmore. It's the same guy who sculpted Stone Mountain in Georgia as well!
Since we drove all the way up to South Dakota, we looked around for other things to do as well. One of Trip Advisor's most popular attractions in the area was Bear Country USA. We thought it was more of a wildlife refuge at first but quickly realized it's more like an open drive-through zoo instead. It was cool to see some of these animals up close and personal!
It was feeding time for the bears.
The baby bears were in a separate area that you could walk around. They were simply adorable. We watched them playing for at least 15 minutes.
We took a different route home and got to drive through Nebraska to see corn fields and wind mills!
I love my road trip buddy! He's great.
I'm catching up on my blog posts with these days out of school so I'll write about Hanna and Corbin's visit to Denver soon!!
