July 16th, day 5

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We contemplated staying another night in the Black Hills, but Nate really wanted to get to Yellowstone, and we have to be back home on the 22nd, so we loaded everything up in the morning (drying things up as best we could after last nights storm) and headed south toward the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs SD. We saw quite a bit of wildlife on the way including some prong horn who looked pretty sickly, more prarie dogs and a small heard of bison.

We all thought the Mammoth site was cool and liked it but our tour guides nasal tone was a bit annoying. At the deepest point of the dig so far they are down 22ft and figure the sink hole is at least 45 feet deep so there is a long way to go. There was a group there actually excavating one area as we watched so that was pretty cool. Unfortunately we left the camera in the car so we have no photos of the Mammoth site.

We had planned on getting to Cody Wy tonite, but by the time we got out of the Mammoth site it was after 2pm and in talking to a local found it is quicker to get to Yellowstone by going through Casper to the south entrance so we headed that direction and are spending the night in Casper at a Motel and washing clothes and getting cleaned up.

Mileage to date: 1228

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