South Dakota

You guessed it... state #33.  I've also been to Illinois, New York, and Maryland this month.  Next month will be California (twice!) and Georgia.

As it turns out there's not much in South Dakota.  It's pretty much part of the BLAH between Pennsylvania and California, but slightly farther north.  I'm in Rapid City this week which is fortunately very close to Mt Rushmore.  I tried to take a picture of myself with the monument but they all ended up looking really fake - like I was cropped in.  Also my head looks HUGE compared to the giant 60 ft heads carved into a mountain which seems... so wrong.

Anyway, they had to remove 900 million pounds of rock to make the carvings which took 18 years to complete (from when the idea was originally proposed - 4 years to raise funding and 14 to carve).  It's supposed to represent the first 130 years of American history.

"A Monument's dimensions should be determined by the importance to civilization of the events commemorated....let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can....our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away."  ~Gutzon Borglum 1930

I also got to go to Niagara Falls and see the cherry blossoms in DC.   Apparently they came early this year and were likely all going to be gone by the week-long festival.  They didn't hold a candle to the cherry blossoms in Japan. [At this point in the writing process I took 20 minutes searching through my email history looking for a picture I took of the cherry blossoms in Japan, but of course I'm in South Dakota and only have my work computer and my sent mail folder doesn't go back to 2005.  Maybe I'll think to add one when I get home, but probably not].