Day 34: American Art

Mount Rushmore is truly a sight to be seen. Its such a common image in American culture to sell things, as spoofs or as inspiration. When I saw it and I believe, when most people see it they experience inspiration. Because of the choice of which presidents to display and the sculptor's views on American Art.

Mount Rushmore was sculpted by a Danish immigrant named Gutzon Borglum. Being an immigrant helped shaped his view of American art. He believed that American art should be just has big and monumental as the American ideals in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Thus a monument to these ideals must be just as big. It took a little over 17 years for the monument to be completed originally Borglum planned to have all the presidents except Roosevelt to be torso length. However Borglum unfortunately died before the final head, Roosevelt's was completed. He left his son to finish the heads.

The life that comes from the sculptures is as amazing as it is an engineering marvel for its time. But what struck me as the most interesting piece of the entire monument were the reasons behind, which presidents to display. Washington was chosen, because he defeated the British and upheld the values in the Declaration of Independence, thus giving birth to our nation and its ideals. Jefferson was chosen because he expanded the land of our nation with the Louisiana Purchase, Lincoln is there because he held the nation together. And Roosevelt's likeness was carved there because he developed the US into the modern marvel it was at the time. That kind of thought really was interesting to me because its a great way to summarize our history in just four faces.

The ideas behind it are really cool, though the execution is at times questionable. First being that you really do not get to explore much of the park the presidential trial goes in front and does not take you very high. You never get to see it from many other angles then you get with the grand view. Also it seems like part of it is a money grab of sorts. There are four different bookstores and gift shops, a restaurant, and two cafés. All of which have higher prices then we've seen in other parks. This frustrated us since we felt that our money's worth did not go nearly as far as it did in any of the other parks. Including Death Valley, but we are glad we went. Its just something you have to see.

After leaving the park Alie and I drove another 8 hours to Rochester MN home the famous Mayo Clinic. Actually we visited one more National Park one of the newest National Parks; The Minuet Man Missile National Historic Site. It is there as an example of the missile race with Russia and what was under the ground during the Cold War in the US. We found it when we stopped for gas. Across the way was a temporary visitor center. The site contains a missile silo and some launch control buildings unfortunately. It is only currently open Monday-Friday. So we did not get our stamp. But it does count as our 20th park! (Kind of) Hopefully we'll be able to pick up one more so we can legitimately claim all 20. Alas it is now getting late and I must head out because we are planning on leaving EARLY and its already too late for me. But first our map and stats:



Visited 50% of the USA!! Booyeah!
Distance: 621.7mi
Moving Average: 68.6mph
Overall Average: 62.6mph
Moving Time: 9h 3m
Stopped: 52m 19s
Total Time: 9h 56m
Wrong Turns: 2
Distance to go: With more days like these we might even get there on time. ;)