We Saw The Heads

"We saw the heads!"  -Elijah Walker, July 2014

If you're not familiar with such technical, three-year old jargon, that means Mt. Rushmore.

Family road trip time!
We first checked out the sights in Keystone, SD.

 After the drive it was late afternoon, so we got to see the lighting ceremony first.

This was after 500+ miles of driving, walking through the town, swimming and eating.  And it was 9:00 mountain time, so little Lijee was all tuckered out.

Once it got dark, the lights came on slowly and the crowd sang The Star Spangled Banner.  It was very patriotic.  Good timing leading up to Independence Day.

There was a ceremony before they actually flipped the switch.  One child was sleeping on the Pops and the other 2 were getting bored.  They just had to potty.  Poor Daddy.  After sitting there for 30 minutes he missed the whole light thing.

The next morning we went back.

Here is a 1:12 model of the original plans.  It's quite a sight to take in as it is, but the original plans were more impressive; however,  the rock below was not as hard as they needed to complete the busts so they stopped with just the heads.

There's a little hiking trail you can take.  This is as close as we got.

There is a little Native American village up top.

Ninety percent of the mountain was cut away with dynamite.  They could blow the rock away within 9 inches or less of where they wanted it.  The rest was done with 'power tools.'  The pay to carry tools and things the 700-some steps up the mountain was $0.30 an hour.

Noogie!

Next we hit a local gold mine tour.

How many Danielses does it take to ignite the TNT?

We got to pick out an ore rock.  If it smelled of rotten eggs it could really be gold underneath.  We weren't lucky enough to get a smelly rock.

 Zeke and Daisy were listening intently.  So gold fever was not just someone intent on finding gold.  They used mercury to get the gold out of the rock; consequently, many people got the gold fever and died after a few months.

This was the port-a-pottie.  It came by twice a day.  They didn't really mind cleaning it out because some of the men would smuggle gold nuggets out of the mine in their mouths.  After the bosses found out they would check them closely, so the miners began to swallow it.  What goes in must come out, and sometimes in came out whilst on the job.

Finally, we learned how to pan for our own gold.

 There's gold in dem dere hills!  Daisy and I mostly just put in pretty rocks, but we got about 3 real gold flakes.

I'm pretty sure the highlight for the kids on our family trip was using the key cards to unlock the doors, being silly in hotels, and swimming.

 

After teasing that they were going to fall in, Zeke really did.

Another family trip in the books!

A big thank you to both sets of parents who watched our doggies!  Both girls had a great time at the grandparents.