South Dakota: Mount Rushmore

So, Mount Rushmore. I had never been there before, and frankly, I thought it was going to be a lot bigger than it actually was!

I'm not posting any pictures of the actual carvings because seriously people, we've all seen it before and it looks just like it does in the pictures. Rather, I present to you a gallery of other interesting things I saw at Mount Rushmore.

1. A soda machine in the guise of Mount Rushmore. What in the world? Do all national parks and monuments have their soda machines decked out in the local sights? For some reason this struck me as odd, and hilarious. Pretty sure my in-laws thought I was weird for taking this picture, though.

2. A sign of anti-rodentism. Well, I know it's for the good of the chipmunk that we don't feed them, but one of my fondest childhood memories was of befriending a chipmunk at Mount Rainier and feeding it peanuts out of our hands all week. And now kids these days can't even look at a chipmunk without being arrested for attempted feeding. It's sad, really.

3. Mount Rushmore being whored out in a vintage advertisement. Note the advertisement is for Bromo-Seltzer, which I'm told was a popular hangover cure back in the day, likely because it contained some nice sedatives. Yes, those sedatives are now illegal, and yes, I'm sad about it.