Mt Rushmore turned out to be a big hit, when in fact we only thought of it as somewhere to stop on our way to the Badlands. I thought we would take a quick look, maybe even out the car window, as we drove by, but we ended up staying for at least 3 hours. First of all, it is totally impressive. When you look at the contrast of the original mountain and the finished monument, its hard to imagine how they envisioned something of that scale. Once you start wondering about that, you immediately want to learn how they built it, and how long it took, etc. They have a great mini-museum with the answers to all those questions, and it actually is very interesting to go through. In addition, there is free camping in the surrounding area, since it is national forest, and there are great climbs and bouldering all around Mount Rushmore, which many of the rangers will be glad to give you info on.