USA/SD: Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Everybody knows Mount Rushmore and tourist flock here in millions to see four American presidents carved into one of the mountains of the Black Hills – Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. Construction began in 1927, and the presidents’ faces were completed by 1939, despite and over the loud objections of the Lakota Indiana for whom the mountain was sacred. Many consider this to be a shrine to American democracy, while to others it is just a mountain defaced with government-sponsored political graffiti. There is not much to do here but walk around and look up at the sunlit sculpture, surrounded with thousands of other people. Plus you pay for mandatory parking, entrance fees, and feel obliged to buy overpriced souvenirs – basically a waste of time…
