America- The Beautiful

 
 My sister,Meredith who lives in Sarasota, Florida and I met up for a wonderful trip exploring the National Parks- and what a beautiful time of the year for us to be here.

We have started off in Rapid City, South Dakota, as Meredith calls a "fast town" and it is clearly a very interesting part of America. It may only have a population of 70,000 yet it has been voted "America's most Patriotic city"– every block has a statue of every single President of the United States. See above and to the right, I am with one of my favorite Presidents-, "Honest Abe Lincoln".

Today we were touring Crazy Horse Memorial which is the world's largest mountain carving and is truly inspirational when one sees what Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was able to accomplish and his family is still carrying out this amazing project. It was incredible to walk around  this landmark– and the quote that sticks in my mind: " My lands are where my dead lie buried"– Crazy Horse

We then went to Mount Rushmore- the national monument and the sculpted faces of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. Inspiring and powerful to be this close to the men who clearly were leaders and had a true American vision.

Tomorrow we travel through Billings, Montana and on to Little Bighorn and will see where Lewis &Clark explored.

Stay tuned- to be continued and wishing all of you a wonderful and peaceful Labor Day weekend