James makes a proper breakfast on the stove (aren't we turning into pioneers!) and we make our way to the Badlands, only a short drive since our cabin was right on the edge of the park. First stop is the visitors centre to wash our hands, water...lovely, lovely water! The Badlands are stunning and we have fun walking around the trails with James pretending he's landed on the moon.
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| Ooohh! |
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| one small step for (wo)man |
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| View from above |
Driving through the park we finally see some Prairie Dogs, yippeee! They pop up out of their burrows and wag their tails at us, heehee! By the time we leave the park we can't believe we spent so long trying to see the first few which were so far away as now they're pretty much running alongside the car!
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| 'Ello mate! |
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| awww I want one. |
We leave the Badlands behind and drive to Spearfish which we've heard is a lovely town in the Black Hills. The motel owner is really nice and gives us some tips to explore. We walk around the quiet town, we like the places where people are surprised to see tourists! We stop for food in a steak house place but it makes Christine queasy so that ends the night!
Time to visit Mount Rushmore. We take the scenic route and drive through Deadwood. Just by looking at the houses and the simple layout of the town, nestled in the mountains, Christine decides that she could quite happily live here. Signs for rhubarb wine catch our eye so we stop for a wine tasting session. Rhubarb wine is quite sweet but crab apple wine is good! It's a shame we have to drive as we see a few more wineries and breweries where we could have stopped for a tasting. We arrive at Mount Rushmore, walk through the avenue of flags and end up face to face (to face to face to face) with Lincoln and co. It is impressive how it's been carved out of the mountain (more so that 90% was done with dynamite) but we did expect it to be bigger. We remind ourselves of the important lesson Father Ted taught us; "Small. Far away." Time to get a little closer and do the president trail which leads you around the bottom of the mountain so you can get a closer look and a different perspective of each face. We don't have time to visit the Crazy Horse memorial but we wish we did, it has a great story behind it and is so much bigger. The people we asked doubt it'll be finished for decades.
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| Nailed it. |
Afterwards we drive through Custer park which is known for it's wildlife. We see buffalo, prairie dogs and a bunch of burros who come up to our window in the hunt for carrots. James has fun driving back along the Iron Hill road with lots of winding turns, pig tail bridges and tunnels carved through the hillside which give a view of Rushmore as we go through them.
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| I'll wash your car for some carrots. |
On the way back we go in search of a diner which looks like Arnold's from Happy Days. When we get there it's clear that the photos for the adverts were taken quite a while ago! The portions are huge but alas the food is a bit blah so we can't even finish it but we're happy when we get to take away a homemade blueberry pie, mmmmmm!!
The next day we drive to see Devils Tower which is a sacred Indian site but is now better known for starring in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The legend of how the rock appeared is that 7 sisters were playing by the river when they were approached by a big bear. They ran away but the bear gave chase. The girls climbed onto a rock and prayed to it to save them from the bear. The rock heard their prayers and started to rise upwards to the sky, out of reach of the bear. You can still see the bears claw marks on the rock (he must have been massive!) and the seven sisters are now seven stars in the sky. The reality isn't as entertaining (unless maybe you're a geologist so you can look that up yourselves) but the rock looked awesome up close. It had so many different shades of colour on it and almost had the texture of a giant tree trunk (I said almost!).
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| waiting for the aliens |
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| Bear claw marks |
It's a long day of driving but we rest at Little Bighorn and read about the defeat of Custer before finally getting to Bozeman for evening food and sleep.
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| Little Bighorn |
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