Day 15 - Across Montana to Mt. Rushmore - Big Sky Country

Decided to show the destination first in today's blog!!  This is of course the famous Mt. Rushmore.  To get the view now,  you have to first park in the designated parking garage and then walk along a walkway with a visitor's center, vendors and then a boulevard with flags on either side.  It is a beautiful view though and certainly iconic!  My fellow travelers opted to come back in the evening for a patriotic lighting ceremony.  As my body resisted the mountain daylight time, I sat this one out.  They reported that it was a really lovely event.

 The ride across Montana was really quite beautiful which surprised me.  There were lots and lots of cattle ranches.  You can still see some mountains in this photo but as the day wore on, we were seeing why it was called Big Sky Country;  There were stark plains with intense blue sky - very few trees to block the view.  It changed somewhat again as we neared South Dakota and we started seeing the rocks and trees again.

All of these photos were taken through the windows of the car while we were driving.  As the scenery was pretty consistent, didn't seem much point in stopping to take photos!

If you look really closely at the above picture, the the lower right hand quadrant, there is a lone deer. 

Our next stop will be the Badlands, then onto Mitchell, South Dakota for the night.  We are officially on our way back home now.  Our only remaining planned stops are Kansas City Missouri, Missouri Star Quilt Company, St. Louis, Missouri  and Albertsville, Alabama.