Note: all links in this blog are secure and will take you to our photo albums, videos, or to a secure website.
Click on any photo in the post to enlarge it.
Link to videos:
The Badlands (about 5 minutes long)
7 weeks, 8,390 miles, 24 states, 8 national parks/monuments, and 1 long-lost cousin found!
We were eager to escape the relentless Arizona heat this summer, so we packed up Romin and hit the road at the beginning of August for a grand adventure.
We headed over to New Mexico and stopped for lunch at the Owl Bar in San Antonio (simply the best Hatch Chile burgers anywhere!). With happy tummies, we hopped back into Romin and continued north.
After an overnight rest in Santa Fe, we headed out for a long day of driving, pushing through Colorado and Wyoming. Our destination was Devils Tower in the northeast corner of Wyoming. It has long been on our wish list of places to see ever since watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and it didn't disappoint.
Devils Tower is our country's first National Monument, established by Teddy Roosevelt. It is a peculiar anomaly that juts out of an otherwise flat landscape. Its formation is complicated, and if you're interested, you can read about it here. As we hiked the 2.75-mile rim trail around the tower we found it to be even more stunning. You just can't appreciate the size and beauty of the tower from a distance. Spend a little time there and you begin to understand why it is sacred to the indigenous people. This rim hike is detailed in the video link above. We could have stayed here for days, but it was time to move on.
Our next stop was Mount Rushmore. The drive through the Black Hills was love at first sight. Rocky granite peaks and cliffs randomly poke out of the forest floor offering a hint of things to come. Our timing was a little nerve-wracking as we happened to be there at the same time as the Sturgis motorcycle rally. We had to navigate around and through literally thousands of motorcycles. They were everywhere, on every road, in every little town, at every national park & monument, everywhere!. (Note to self: next time check ahead for events like this!) We drove through the little town of Custer, a cute little western town, looking for some lunch, but as every little corner was filled with motorcycles, it was difficult to find a place to park. We finally found a parking spot and ate at a little lunch counter in a gift shop, had a hot dog and beer, and continued on down the road.
We took a momentary detour to look at the Crazy Horse mountain. The motorcycles set us back on our schedule, so we didn't have enough time to visit this monument, but we did get a couple of pictures.
We continued on to Mount Rushmore, which took a little longer than anticipated, but we finally made it. The monument is free to visit, but there is a $10 parking charge (potatoes, potahtoes...you pay one way or the other.). It was quite crowded, which made the experience a bit less enjoyable, but we navigated through the pack and got some decent pictures and video. It was a little surreal to actually be standing in front of it after seeing so many pictures of it. It wasn't as big as we thought it would be, but it was still amazing. There is a really good museum onsite that shows how it was planned and eventually carved. It was quite fascinating to see the process and you can read about it here if you're interested.
We had an overnight in Rapid City and an early morning drive over to The Badlands.
The morning was overcast and drizzling rain, which was disappointing. It was the one day that we really needed it to be sunny so we could get some stunning pictures. But it wasn't meant to be so we made the best of it. The Badlands was also on our wish list of places and to finally be here and driving through the park was incredible. The terrain is very similar to the Painted Desert but with higher mountains. It is a beautiful example of erosion at work exposing the many different layers of rock.
We spent several hours driving around the 40-mile loop road and exploring all there was to see. Eventually, though, it was time to move on to our next overnight stop in Sioux Falls. We made a quick stop at the ever-so-famous Wall Drug, as all the billboards pointed out (honestly, never heard of it). It was more like a shopping mall than a drug store, with room after tiny room crammed with all kinds of stuff for sale. I felt it was a waste of time and just a big tourist trap. You can Google it if you want, but I didn't feel it was worth my time to create a link 😜
Thanks for reading about my travels! To be continued.....
Peace & Love
Pete & Lori (and Romin!)
Comments