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Hi Everyone,
Two entries in one day, I am amazed by the amount of wireless internet connections out here! After visiting Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse we decided to take the scenic drive through south western South Dakota. We had some extra time so we stopped at Wind Cave National Park to see what it was all about. When we arrived in the park we had our first big wildlife spotting, a couple of buffalo grazing on the prairie land. They barely even noticed we were there. Once in the park we decided to take the Cave Tours they offered. It was pretty scary at first because we must have descended down 300 stairs or so. The walkways were extremely narrow and some were very low. Thankfully at my height, I don't need to worry about that. The rock formations were very unique and different than I had ever seen before. Wind cave doesn't have the typical stalagmites or stalactites; it has what they called box formations on the ceilings. Apparently, Wind Cave has 95% of the world's box formation. Other caves typically have a very small amount if any. Our tour guide was wonderful, very knowledgeable and the tour
was really fun after all. I was a little nervous leaving because you ride an elevator up rather than walking back up all those steps. I think we were about 200 feet underground, which isn't that bad.
After Wind Cave we planned to head down to Cheyenne, Wyoming. We figured that we wouldn't make it the whole way but we figured we could make a good dent in the driving. So we eagerly headed for back road driving through South Dakota and Wyoming. These roads were some of the most beautiful that I have driven. It was amazing to see just how pristine the wilderness is. There were stretches of road that seemed to go on forever without seeing another soul. It was rolling hills, mountains in the distance, buffalo grazing, pronghorn antelope running, grasslands blowing, and trains. It was really quite beautiful. We went by a couple of very interesting towns. The first was Lost springs, Wyoming, population 1. A town of 1, how amazing. In Mass it's lucky if you see any more small towns, and even then it's usually around 10,000. The next town we hit was Shawnee which is actually deserted. It now has a
population of zero, although there are houses and businesses that have been abandoned.
We arrived in Wheatland, Wyoming planning on setting up camp for the night but of course there were a couple of teeny tiny problems. We were turned away at the campground because the owners felt that it was too cold to camp. So we decided to investigate hotels for the night. We apparently there was something called the "turnaround" in town that week. The local power plant was closing down for it's yearly cleaning and restoration, so they call in crews from all over the state to help out. Well they filled up all the hotels and I thought we were in Cowboy Mecca. There were pickups trucks and cowboys everywhere; it was like our Wyoming dream. We were so excited; we had already picked out the local bar that was having Karaoke night. We were fixin for some flirting with actual cowboys in their ten gallon hats (Just fliriting-don't worry). But alas it was just a mirage, we were denied at each and every hotel. No vacancies. So we kept on plugging down to Chugwater, Wyoming (population 244- considered a big town). There was one
hotel but it was filled with some intimidating truckers so we ended up making it all the way to Cheyenne. Once again we are at Motel 6. Hopefully we will start seeing some nice weather soon (Hotels-2, Camping 3). I have good feelings about Colorado (staying with Jen's brother-thankfully) and then Utah.
I hope that all is well with everyone!
Love Laura
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Jenny from the block
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my favorite place on earth.
i heart Wall Drug. i wish we could go back.