Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Washington at Night

A. F. Litt: Mt. Rushmore National Memorial &emdash; Washington At Night 

Washington at Night
Mt. Rushmore National Memorial.  South Dakota.  August 7, 2014
Copyright © 2014 A. F. Litt, All Rights Reserved

Photo of the Day by A. F. Litt: November 11, 2014

Continuing on into the Black Hills and a decent photo, I think, for Veterans’ Day...  

This is from the profile viewpoint a little west of the insanity of the main visitor area.  It was our third visit to the mountain.  We drove past on the way to our campground, which was just a couple miles down the road from the memorial, late in the afternoon on Saturday, and A. F. Litt: Mt. Rushmore National Memorial &emdash; Misty Washingtonmade our main visit on Sunday before heading on to Crazy Horse and Wind Cave.

On our first drive by, the mountain was completely obscured by clouds, leading to the joke: “We drove all the way to Wallyworld…  And it was closed!”  Through the low clouds, a faint suggestion of Washington’s profile was visible from the same place today’s “official photo” was shot from…

The National Park Service has a lighting ceremony at the memorial on summer evenings, and then keeps the mountain lit for an hour or two before shutting the lights off for the night.

We missed the lighting ceremony, choosing the Crazy Horse laser show instead.  Yeah, lasers tend to beat history, tradition and national pride when we’ve got 11 and 15 yeaA. F. Litt: South Dakota &emdash; Crazy Horse Mountain Lasersr old boys in the family, and that was fine with me since it allowed us to get more bang for the buck for the very pricey fees they are charging these days at Crazy Horse (worth it, though, if you take the time to go through the museum). 

Honestly, the lasers were cool, but I would rather have gone to Rushmore that night.  The saving grace was the lasers coupled with the evening lightning storm (which happened most nights on our trip)…  The human spectacle coupled with nature’s display made for a pretty spectacular show that night. 

Returning to camp, we could see that the glow was still on from the lights at Rushmore, so we ran up the hill to take today’s photo.

For more information on the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial: http://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm 

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