Add these to your bucket list at your own peril: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/06/22/101_places_not_to_see_before_you_die/slideshow.html
Everyone should visit Mt. Rushmore at least once, if only to see how incredibly smug and self-congratulatory we can be in the US. The visitors' center and surrounding exhibits really do wack you upside the head with the flag and associated nationalist propoganda. The best view of the actual mountain, in my opinion, is from the road on the way to MR. It's a normal mountainy-type road that could be anywhere and you're just driving along. All of a sudden you go around a curve and BAM! There it is. It's very striking. Disgraceful, but striking. I was sorry that we bothered to go to the visitors' center because even though we had a pass to get into all the National Parks, we still had to pay to park the car.
maybe you are forgetting that Mt. Rushmore was "carved" between 1927 and 1941. a lot of that was during the Great Depression. if it had been done between 1963 and 1978, i would agree with you more. during the same period Borglum completed two other projects, a Thomas Paine memorial in Paris and one for Woodrow Wilson in Poland. personally, i think Paine would have been curious about that choice, but Polish independence was one of Wilson's 14 Points...
It's amateur night. Having lived around NYC my entire life, I never had any interest whatsoever in freezing my azz off to watch a twinkling ball drop to the top of a roof packed in butts to nuts with a bunch of strangers. Plus, as the article mentioned the NYC Gestapo won't even let you drink properly out of a paper bag like they did in the pre-Giuliani days - aka - when NYC was actually FUN, dirtier and a bit more dangerous. St. Paddy's Day is a whole different experience
I'm not talking about the carving, necessarily. I'm talking about the tone of all of the exhibits in the visitors' center. Had I just seen the mountain without being subjected to the rest of the propaganda, I wouldn't have felt so icky when I left.
Plymouth Rock was a bit of a let down. Not the actual town of Plymouth but the actual rock. I figured it would be some big stone but it was no bigger than my desk. Definitely agree with Barb. Mount Rushmore was a waste of time for me.
I thought I was going to die laughing when I finally saw Plymouth rock. All the hype and the fancy gazebo thing and you look down at the beach and there's a..... rock. I almost fell over the railing I was laughing so hard.
i completely disagree. Williamsburg/Jamestown has been developed to capture in a fairly faithful manner the feeling of the early 17th century in what was the Virginia Colony. it's not the EPCOT center, but the fact that people crossed the Atlantic Ocean in such a ship says something.
For those of you who are scared of crowds. Do not visit: Amsterdam on Queen's Day (April 30.) The Dutch Northsea beaches this week (we're experiencing a heat wave) My hometown Enschede on any day that the Germans are enjoying a public holiday (May 1. notably)
otoh, there's a grocery store in Den Haag that carries 173 varieties of rice and 61 different yoghurt/kefir flavors.
Ah Plymouth..............what a fun field trip to get dragged on YEARLY from grades 1-8. Maybe it's why I majored in history.
Old Faithful. Totally underwhelming when compared to the rest of the park, which is fantastic. We saved it for last, and were really disappointed.
You're right that the rest of the park is better, but "totally underwhelming" seems a bit harsh. We started with OF, and it was a great way to begin the day. In any case Yellowstone is absolutely a must see destination, and OF is just one part of it.
Like Plymouth Rock, the problem is the hype, not the thing itself. Old Faithful is actually really neat but sitting around with 500 other people waiting for it like it's the second coming made the whole experience not really worth it. Had it been something we could just go up to and watch without all the hoopla, I would have enjoyed it more.
private showings are very hard to come by sometimes. and when something happens every 60 minutes ( or whatever ), unless you have the schedule and an atomic clock, you're bound to wait a bit.