Today is a day off again while the drivers sleep, this time in Rapid City. SD, about 40 minutes from Mount Rushmore. Got up, did some reading, made my daily homemade hot chocolate concoction (almond milk, raw chocolate powder, coconut butter, stevia, coconut sugar, cinnamon), and headed up to the cleanup room at the hotel to get ready for the day.
Our AKUS instrument tech Michael Bethancourt rented a van with Jerry Douglas and we squeezed in there with four of the other crew guys to head to Rushmore with Lyle Lovett singing away about Texas. I’d been to Rushmore years ago, during either the Down from the Mountain tour or Great High Mountain.
Jerry parked the van, and we all tumbled out and walked up the steps, taking a little time to stare at Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It was perfect weather - a few clouds to add highlights, eye-squinting sun, and the deep blue, sharp clarity of the western sky. But the smell of buffalo burgers and brats from a stand about fifteen feet away was a much greater magnet to our senses at the moment, so we ponied up and ordered lunch.
After that we went closer to the kingly faces carved into the mountain and took photos. I wondered what it would have been like to have been standing on a scaffold hundreds of feet up, chiseling away the bits that didn’t look like George Washington.
I’m back at the hotel now and ready to get going on the Telecaster banjo and my ’38 Herringbone.
(Pictured in photo are some of the AKUS crew. Chris-House Sound, Alex-Stage Manager, and Mike-Monitors)
Our AKUS instrument tech Michael Bethancourt rented a van with Jerry Douglas and we squeezed in there with four of the other crew guys to head to Rushmore with Lyle Lovett singing away about Texas. I’d been to Rushmore years ago, during either the Down from the Mountain tour or Great High Mountain.
Jerry parked the van, and we all tumbled out and walked up the steps, taking a little time to stare at Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It was perfect weather - a few clouds to add highlights, eye-squinting sun, and the deep blue, sharp clarity of the western sky. But the smell of buffalo burgers and brats from a stand about fifteen feet away was a much greater magnet to our senses at the moment, so we ponied up and ordered lunch.
After that we went closer to the kingly faces carved into the mountain and took photos. I wondered what it would have been like to have been standing on a scaffold hundreds of feet up, chiseling away the bits that didn’t look like George Washington.
I’m back at the hotel now and ready to get going on the Telecaster banjo and my ’38 Herringbone.
(Pictured in photo are some of the AKUS crew. Chris-House Sound, Alex-Stage Manager, and Mike-Monitors)