Mt. Rushmore/End of the Road

We have safely arrived home, but before I get into that, here is a few photos from the last few days of our trip.

After going through Yellowstone, our next stop was Mt. Rushmore. You can't really see the mountain until you enter the parking area, which is really nice in my opinion. I love the element of surprise :)
The base of the mountain was flooded with tourists,  but it wasn't as crowded as I had thought it might be.
We walked the trail that goes along the base of the mountain. There are an incredible amount of stairs, but the view from directly under the carvings is very nice. There is no way to show massive scale of Mt. Rushmore in a photo.

Our family photo in front of Mt. Rushmore

It was really neat to see one of the nine scale model's the artist created before the carving began.

This mountain is located about seventeen miles from Mt. Rushmore. Situated near the location of Custer's last stand, it is a work in progress carving of Custer on his horse. Once it is finished, it will be the largest carving in the world. Currently the face is the only thing carved, which you can see to the right.

We visited Jewel caves, near Mt. Rushmore. This picture, with the bars across the doorway, reminds me of a scene in J. Grace Pennington's novel, Never.

And some cowboy humor :)

We arrived home safe and sound late last night. The dogs, cat, bunnies, horses and goats were all glad to see us and it was good to be home. It was especially wonderful to sleep in a real bed!
Thus ends our adventures for the time being :) I will be taking the next week off of posting, but I will be back on Monday, the 13th, hopefully with some videos of the trip and a photo slideshow of all my favorites.