This desolate stretch of the Badlands of South Dakota are one of the very few places on our route where you can lie down in the middle of the road to get a shot like this.

Video of the first month in USA

Some days we have to change the route a bit to fit our schedule and our accommodations locations. Today we did not have any scheduled meetings so we spent the morning visiting two incredible mountain sculptures, Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

The perennial grandeur of Mount Rushmore is a testament to the Great Souls that it honors as well as to those whose unparalleled determination created it.

I am sure most people have heard of the first one, where four U.S. presidents were sculpted into the hard granite stone of a mountain face in the Black Hills.

Gutzon Borglum was the sculpture who designed and started the process of carving these huge figures in stone in 1927. The whole process took 14 years to complete with over 400 men working on this giant work of love and art. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln pear out from the top of the mountain with the firm resolve of their roles as great and influential leaders in this country.

Less than 20 miles away, still in the hard granite hillsides of the Black Hills of South Dakota, a monument to Crazy Horse, a great Native American Indian leader, is still being carved. Korczak Ziolkowski, from Boston and of Polish descent, started this mammoth undertaking single-handedly in 1949 at the age of 39 after being commissioned by Chief Henry Standing Bear to create a lasting memorial to the native people by honoring one of their heroes and leaders.

After many days of being away from internet access, the team eagerly checks out this web site for that special thrill of reading their story and seeing their images.

He started with only 174 dollars and he worked for decades as his crew start to increase and he battled financial hardship, racial prejudice, injuries and advancing age. Crazy Horse Memorial is not only a work in progress, but a nonprofit educational and cultural humanitarian built by the interested public and not the taxpayer.

Running through Custer State Park we encountered many interested people who would stop and ask us what we were doing. There were bikers who were cycling across the country, tourists who were picnicking and others who just would stop to ask what we were doing.

A busload of people from the American Tours West and tour guide Nancy Neal were having a picnic and called to me as I was running by. I went to them and explained what we were doing and that our service car would be coming by soon and I could give them brochures. While waiting for our car to come by, I ended up doing a solo ceremony complete with singing the World Harmony Run song written by Sri Chinmoy , the founder. A young girl named Jennifer was celebrating her tenth birthday and we ended up singing happy birthday to her as she held the torch. Luckily she did not try to blow it out after making a wish.

Finishing our run near The Badlands, my team drove through most of this amazing geological wonder, stopping to take photos just as many other tourists were doing. While stopped at a number of locations we met people from New York City where I live, the Cox family from North Carolina from a city where Julian lives, and Davey and Rich Rogner from Silver Springs, Maryland near to where Pathik lives.

The amazing vistas and panoramas offered by the Badlands formations were incredible. But the enthusiasm and interest of the people we met along the way was even more inspiring.

We ended the day in Kadoka where we stayed at the Budget Host Inn. We are grateful to them for the wonderful accommodations in this peaceful setting.

Arpan and Team Harmony

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