Road trip to Mount Rushmore

Like I had mentioned in my earlier post, I had been to Mount Rushmore on a road trip this past weekend. The first reaction from everyone at work when I mentioned to them that I am going on a road trip to Mount Rushmore on a 3 day weekend was "Are you crazy?". But I just couldn’t get why they felt that way. I told them, since there is nothing else to see over there, all we are going to do is to drive there, see the monument and then start driving back. As simple as that :)

Anyway, here are some random talking points from the trip:

1) These are some numbers associated with the trip:

Distance traveled - 2492 miles (I was wondering how much this would have meant if I had done this drive in India. And what I found out was amazing? The distance between Kanyakumari and Sri Nagar is 3617 kms, which is still less than what we drove)
Gasoline consumed - 160 gallons
States driven through - 5 (Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota)
Monuments seen - Mount Rushmore & Devil's tower
Total duration of the trip - 56 hours
Time spent inside the vehicle - 38 hours

2) One thing that was too glaring to miss was the profiling of cars that we saw on the roads in the 5 different states. Except for Washington where almost 2 out of 3 cars are either Japanese or Korean make, the only cars we saw in the other 4 states were domestic cars. I could have easily counted with my hands, the number of Hondas and Toyotas on the roads in states like Montana and Wyoming. All I could see was Buicks, Chryslers, Dodge and Chevy’s. No wonder these are hard-core red states when it comes to voting.

3) Timeline of the trip

Friday, 11pm - Leave Seattle
Saturday, 5pm - Reach Mount Rushmore
Sunday, 11am - Leave Mount Rushmore
Monday, 7am - Reach Seattle

4) Montana was the toughest state to drive through bcos of the sheer breadth of the state. It is just so huge that the total number of miles driven through the state was 550 - almost half of the total distance between Seattle & Mt. Rushmore. Having to cover that long a distance also means this was the most boring state to drive through too. We would go 20-40 miles together before we would see any town of some decent size. As a testimony to how huge this state is, there were places where the signs on the freeway that said “Next Rest Area After 137 miles”!!

5) Prior to entering the memorial, I was having a bet with my friend as to whether we will see atleast 10 desis in the monument. I was betting for it and he was against it. Finally, my friend lost pretty badly, as the number of desis we came across would have been easily 100 :)

6) Now for some facts about the monument:

- there are 4 Presidents whose faces have been sculpted in the mountains.
- they are George Washington (1st), Thomas Jefferson (3rd), Abraham Lincoln (16th) and Theodore Roosevelt (26th)
- the construction of these statues took 14 years, from 1927 to 1941.
- almost 400 workers toiled to bring this monument to life and the best part was that there were no fatal accidents during the construction of these statues.
- the chief sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, didn’t live to see the finished product. He died 7 months before the completion date and it was left to his son to give the finishing touches.
- there is NO plan to add more Presidents faces to the monument.

7) One tip that I can offer if you are planning to visit Mount Rushmore – while you are on your way to the mountain, there are couple of points (a good 3-4 miles from the actual destination) where you will get a glimpse of the mountain & its faces. I would advise you not to take a peek at the mountain from that point. Reason being, it will kind of dampen your expectations bcos the faces appear too small from that distance. My friend, for example, went “Did we come all the way to see this?”. But his opinion changed once he saw the mountain from up-close. Though in the larger picture, your opinion will be one of awe & admiration, that one moment when you see the mountain from a distance will lessen your experience of enjoying the spectacle, that little bit.

8) We also visited this place called Devil's Tower on our way back from Rushmore. When I was researching for places to visit in that area, a friend at work suggested I stop over at this place in Wyoming bcos this is pretty much on our way. Since I was already looking for places to visit since it shouldn’t be such that we drove all the way from Seattle just to see the mountain, I readily agreed. Looks like this is the biggest attraction of that state (the license plates of that state carried its picture) and also it has been proclaimed as America’s first national monument. This tower was actually pretty cool. It looks like this huge pillar, right in the middle of the desert. There is a trail around the tower which gives amazing views of the pillar. It was also so exciting to see climbers all along the mountain.

9) Contrary to my expectations, I did not come across one stretch of dry area throughout the trip. I was expecting something like a Arizona kind of terrain but it was a pleasant surprise to see lush green mountains and dunes, all the way. It was only in South Dakota it was beginning to get dry but we reached our destination, a mere 50 miles driving into the state.

10) This long a drive guarantees one thing - speeding tickets :) My friend was cruising at 110 mph during a stretch in Montana, but it was not then he got a ticket. Instead, he was stopped when he was speeding at 85 mph on a 65 limit zone. How funny & ironic. And before long, it was my turn to be pulled over. But I fared marginally better, in the sense that I was pulled over for driving at 80 mph on a 75 mph limit zone. I was let off with a warning. So, after that we were joking around, saying it was not a question of if anymore, but it was a question of when and who will be getting the next ticket :) But thankfully, we did not get any after that.

About the drive - to say that the drive was tiring would be a gross understatement. When we got back to Seattle on Monday morning, we didn’t know what hit us and we hit the bed. Literally, each and every part of the body was paining and I can still feel the pain, as I type this. Another highlight of the trip - the SUV we had rented did not have cruise control. Though this was kind of a blessing in disguise in that it helped us stay awake at the wheel, the unimaginable distance covered during the trip warranted a vehicle with cruise control.

And to the final question, was it worth it? I will have to say NO. With due respect to the magnitude of the effort that has gone into making these statues & the historical relevance of the same & the satisfaction it gives of having visited one of the most significant landmarks in the US, I still feel that the trip was not worth the wear & tear that we had to put our bodies through, driving the whole distance. May be, if you are within a 6-10 hours drive at most, this is a definitely a must-see place. But for folks like me from Seattle, a half-hearted NO would be the answer.