A Saturday Drive

Today was about unwinding and relaxing. We had our usual morning routine of coffee and walking dogs. We decided that we would just take a drive this morning instead of trying to visit any of the official sites around here.

We headed out to take 89 North, which goes across the Needles highway. Highway is a loosely applied term around here. Most of the roads are narrow 2-lane blacktop with no shoulders. This was a twisty-turny road that provided beautiful views and rocks galore.

We didn't get many good pictures, because the morning was cloudy and gray.

The green, thick forest is beautiful!

Even though it was hazy, this is an awsome view.

From 89, we took 16A, also called Iron Mountain Highway. This is another twisty, turny road that leads to the turn-off to Mt. Rushmore. But this one has tunnels that allow travelers to get a view of Mt. Rushmore as they come out of them.

It's hard to get a perspective of the size of the carvings on Mt. Rushmore from driving by. It's even harder to grasp their magnitude in a picture. Today we were lucky to see a group of people on Roosevelt's head. Our guess is that this is a crew dismantling the fireworks structures. If you look very closely, you can see the little dots on top of the head of Roosevelt. There were 6 or 8 people there.

After our drive, we came home, had leftovers from yesterday's barbeque and have spent the afternoon relaxing.

We got a call from Ginger and arranged a lunch on Monday with her and Jesse. We'll be going over to Hermosa where they are staying. It's about 20 miles over there, through Custer State Park. We'll just have to endure the scenery another time.

Karon and her family have moved across the state line into Wyoming. We'll see you down the road!

The sun came out this afternoon and it's been another wonderful day.