South Dakota Vacation - Day 3

Today we went to the Crazy Horse Monument in the morning. My uncle told me that they lived in a house about 200 yards off the road at the entrace to the monument and told me to look for an old house on the right. If he is right this is the house my grandmother raised her five boys at. She was widowed when she was pregnant with her last child (the one who told me where the house was located at).
We left Custer heading west to Newcastle Wyoming. We went north from there to Lead South Dakota where the gold mines were.

This was one of the sights we saw driving our short stretch in Wyoming. This was just a mountain in someones field, no special markings. I thought it was pretty with the white on the top and the red dirt with the green trees at the foot of the hill.

When we got to Lead we had lunch at a Pub on Main Street. In Lead the streets are almost straight up and down. And I had to parallel park to boot. It took me a few seconds to remember which way to turn the wheels when you are parking facing down hill. I turned them to the right toward the curb. I guess I was right because when I was sitting with mom on the deck eating lunch I scoped out all the other cars and they followed my lead.

The clock below was right next to the pub we ate at.

The buildings below are part of the old gold mine "Homestake" in Lead. The gold mine was active for 125 years closing in 2002.

The open pit gold mine in the picture below is one of the mines in the area. This hole was huge. I had an uncle that worked in these mines in the 70's.

I'm not sure what this contraption was for but it was up on the side of the hill above the open pit mine.
This is one of the trains used in the mine to pull the rock out of the mine.
We finally made it to Deadwood which is now the area for gambling. I thought this hotel was a good picture. We made it home in time for a nice nap.

We wanted to go see the lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore. You can see we made it. I have never really taken pictures after dark so this is one of the first of my attempts.

One of the rangers gave a 30 minute talk about the monument and what each of these men did for our country. It was very informative and it was quite amazing how much she taught me that I should have already known.

At the end they brought down the service men and women. They took volunteers from that group to take the flag down and fold it. Then each of them stated what branch of the armed forces they were in and their name. It was a very nice end to the day.