Happy Monday! We recently traveled through South Dakota, so, of course, we visited Badlands National Park and Wind Cave National Park. And we couldn’t leave without visiting Mount Rushmore. I’ve updated my National Parks bucket list and my movie location list.

Here are a couple of interesting NEW tidbits I learned while in South Dakota:

The soft rock in Badlands National Park is eroding at about one inch per year. So all of the formations could disappear in about 500,000 years.

Wind Cave holds about 95% of all known boxwork on Earth. Boxwork is a rare, honeycomb-like network of thin mineral blades that stick out from cave walls and ceilings. Local explorers and geologists used the term “boxwork” simply because the intersecting blades of calcite resembled a maze of old post office boxes.

The name Mount Rushmore initially started as a joke. Mount Rushmore is named after Charles E. Rushmore, a New York City lawyer who visited the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1885 on mining business. While inspecting tin mining claims, Rushmore asked a local guide or companion what the unnamed granite peak was called. A member of the group joked that they would name it after him, and the name stuck. Before it was named after Charles E. Rushmore, the mountain was known to the Lakota people as Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or the “Six Grandfathers,” holding deep spiritual significance.

We’re slowly checking off the national parks from our list. We’re at 41 out of 63. It’s always fun to travel somewhere NEW and learn NEW things! I hope you have a great day and get to do or learn something NEW today too!