Day 4--A Little Gold Panning, a Little Trout Spotting, and Some Stoney Faced Dudes

We decided to wander a bit from our Stockade Lake North campsite (site 36E--very private electric site--huge, but you do hear traffic noise a bit, but we loved our site.)  We headed toward Mount Rushmore taking the Iron Mountain Road.  We stopped at this beautiful campground in the Center Lake area, passing the park playhouse on the way.  This campground is first come first served, no reservations and no electric sites.  The sites on the creek were beautiful. 

Sam panned for gold without success.  Bummer.  But, we spotted some nice sized trout and planned to come back again to try fly fishing another day. 

There's a trout!

And another!  Too bad the fly rod is back in the camper.

Mount Rushmore off in the distance.  Our debate for the day--monument or the world's largest graffiti?  After we got home we watched a documentary about the sculptor.  We didn't know he was a member of the KKK and didn't see any mention of this in the exhibits.   

We had to find the Minnesota flag. 

Sam pushing the plunger to carve the mountain.   

The artist's mock up.  Amazing what the full sculpture would have been if completed. 

Never  noticed Lincoln's hand the last two times I was visiting. 

OK, how many more pictures of their faces can you take? 

Looking for the Hall of Records we got this great view of Washington. 

Sam fell asleep in the car, something that has not happened in years.  So, we took the long way home via The Needles Highway.  It was beautiful.  Darren teased me the whole way that he would be riding it on his bike while on the trip.  Little did we know that he would the next day!  He met up with a cycling club from the town of Custer and he joined in their ride, otherwise he would have never attempted it alone. 

I believe this is the area that my mom thought my dad was going off the road when we made a childhood trip out with my grandparents.  "That's not the road, Bob," she said as he pulled on to an overlook.  I had several of those moments myself.  Roads in high altitude with no guardrails are not my favorite!  But, the views were amazing.