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Orlando Bingles’ Rocky Mountain High: Day 15

by Bingle on Jun.02, 2009, under Richard Bingle Family

Windmills and pronghorn antelope

“Day fifteen was to be yet another long driving day. This time we were trying to reach Mount Rushmore National Memorial in time to see the evening program. The drive through Montana and Wyoming produced dozens of pronghorn antelope sightings, sometimes singular antelope, once a few dozen. In all, we probably saw over a hundred antelope.

The day was dreary and rainy most of the time, which made the drive seem all the longer. It didn’t help things that we ended up backtracking about twenty miles along our route to get gas when we noticed we probably weren’t going to make it to the next available station along our route. It was a good thing we went back – we would have definitely run out. The rain stopped as we neared Mount Rushmore.

As we pulled into the Mount Rushmore parking area, the girls spotted what Alyssa initially thought was a poodle. It turned out that it was Mount Rushmore’s unofficial mascot, a mountain goat. We didn’t get any pictures because we were in line to pay for parking and it was getting dark anyway.

Mt. Rushmore at night

We had arrived in time for the evening program which includes a talk, a twenty minute movie, the lighting of the mountain, and a flag lowering ceremony. It was just starting to drizzle lightly when the program was ending. We were thankful we had arrived in time and that the rain had held off, as the program was very enjoyable.

After the evening program, we drove a short ways down the road (about twenty minutes) to our hotel in Hill City. Unfortunately, Hill City closes sometime before 10:00 p.m. so we ended up having to get dinner from the only place open in town – a gas station.


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