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Up and out early today. At breakfast at Wall Drug Café. What a great street and store! Very rustic and a throwback to the old west. Lots of great pictures and souvenirs. Shopped a bit long but had a lot of fun. Drove just under 2 hrs to Mount Rushmore. Everything seems bigger out here. Very vast and open and the landscape is so very interesting. Mount Rushmore was incredible. Once again, just cannot believe the scope of it! You see it in pictures, but cannot imagine how it looks in real life. Spent a little time there and then off to Crazy Horse Memorial. After speaking with a local at breakfast, we decided to add that and Devil’s Tower to the day. Will put us into Cody, WY very late, but thought while we were out here… So glad we did. Crazy Horse Memorial is a work in progress – only the head and a bit of the squaring of the horse finished right now, but it is huge! All of the heads of Mount Rushmore can fit in the head of Crazy Horse and that is only a small portion of the total sculpture! Would be very cool to
come back years later to see the progress. We didn’t spend too much time there, just enough to see the orientation video, take pictures of the monument and see a bit of traditional Indian dancing. They had a great museum complex, but we really couldn’t stay too long. Off to Devil’s Tower about 2 hours away. On the way we ran across the site of the 2000 Jasper fire, which was the largest fire in the history of SD, burning over 83,000 acres. It was caused by a carelessly dropped match! Sad to see all the scarred land!Hard to imagine a fire that size!
We reached Devil’s Tower at about 6:00 and very glad we took the detour! Hard to imagine this formation that stand over 800 feet from base to top, 1.5 acres forms the top surface and 1000 ft diameter at the base. Huge formation from Molten magma and has striated columns down the sides from where the earth cooled. Very cool. Started to rain while we were there, but overall, we have had amazing weather. Even the rain was just a sprinkle. We stopped on the way out to see the prairie dogs playing around. They
Sculpture of Mt Rushmore
This gentleman spent 3 years working on the carving of Mt Rushmore. Interested in reading his book we picked up, came close because they thought we were going to feed them! On our way now to motel in Cody, WY – 5 hrs away. Another late night, but we are sure packing it in! So much for pacing ourselves!
Highest elevation thus far has been 5200 in the Black Hills of WY. We got to drive past Sundance WY on the way to the Devil’s Tower.
PS VERY LATE NIGHT! Had to drive a mountain pass at midnight that had so many switchbacks, pitch black, off and on drizzle and had to watch for the many deer on the side of the road! We made it, but it was somewhat painful. Would have been very pretty in the daylight. Reached just over 9000 ft elevation. Whew! Toughest driving yet.
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Audra
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Love!
The prairie dogs are always so cool! I love the way they "sit up"!!!! Your trip is breath taking!!