6/3/21- We woke up on the ranch, pretty cool that I can say that! After heading to Walmart to restock for the last leg of the trip, we hooked up the car and headed through Wyoming. Such a vast sage brush land spotted with a few cattle and some horses of many colors.
We decided to go off the plan đł and detour to Devils Tower in the northeast corner of Wyoming. We were passing that way, kind of, so we swung on by to see it. From a distance it looked impressive but the closer we got, the more amazed we were. Glad we decided to see this. It is the first National Monument!
We drove on a short distance and voila, we were in South Dakota. This seemed amazing to me, I donât think I ever envisioned me being in this state. Once here, we decided to detour again into Sturgis… for Paul, of course, and we found the Black Hills Harley Dealership to snag a t-shirt. Huge parking lot for the RV and after some tails of the âorganized chaosâ of the Sturgis motorcycle festival, we headed east again to our nightâs stay. The last picture is of the long straight road we were on for 115 miles and all the spots are bugs… just a few (hundred)! You know when you are driving in the snow and slush and the snow plow passes you going the other way.. and the slush splats all over your windshield? We passed a spot where there was a swarm of bugs and, yes, all the sudden a multitude of bugs splatted sounding like slush hitting the windshield… OMG, too hard to see through this mess!
We stayed the night at the Sick and Twisted Brewery near Mount Rushmore and decided to just sit, sip, and eat pizza. There was another couple staying behind the brewery with the Harvest Host organization. Bob and Cindy were so easy to talk to and we enjoyed their company while we ate. Gotta love those Harvest Hosts… bringing people together.
6/4/21- Woke up and took off for Mount Rushmore, arriving there by 9:30! It was so impressive and the museum was informative, showing how the sculptor created this monument. It took 14 years and was finished by his son. I thought it was interesting why the 4 presidents were chosen for the masterpiece.
off to Wind Cave National Park. Since this was not on our original plan either, we did not get tour tickets ahead of time (came to find out you have to be at the park 2 hours before it opens and stand in line with 250-300 people to get a tour. We walked to the natural cave opening (largest natural cave opening) and Paul is holding blessing steamers in front of the opening, you can see how the wind blew the streamers. It was blowing around 9 miles per hour.
Off to the Badlands for 3 nights. It was 103.2 according to our thermometer, which was in the shade of the awning! A hot one! Off to do laundry and sitting in the air conditioned camp store as I write this.
Add one more state to the map, South Dakota!