Since the day's driving was to be relatively short, we took a late morning and didn't get out of the hotel until well past 10 or 11am. As we left Gillette, a thunderstorm was rolling in from the west, so we took off at speed in an attempt to outrun the rain.
Out of nowhere...
As you head northeast from I-90 at Moorcroft, out of a flat plain suddenly appears a large, flat-topped tower. Devils Tower National Monument is set around the tower itself, described by my brother as "wow, that looks like Isengard". As we drove in, a light, intermittent rain started to fall, so we grabbed umbrellas for the short loop trail circling the tower. We promptly took a few pictures by the tower:
Good thing we did, because within ten minutes the rain started pouring down. With it came lots of lightning, very close by, which couldn't have been comforting for the few people actually climbing the Tower. The second half of the trail was more about getting out of the rain than seeing the sights, so there aren't any more interesting pictures.
After getting back to the cars and changing out of soaked shoes and jeans, we made our way towards Rapid City. Soon after leaving Devils Tower, the rain went away, only to come back - fiercely - near the South Dakota border. (Also right at the border I saw perhaps the only state trooper in all of Wyoming). This time, the rain wasn't accompanied by lightning. Instead, we got huge hail that sounded like it could break windows. We managed to escape without any damage and get into Rapid City, where we were staying at the house of a family friend.
Of bronchi, bears, and blocks of rock
Upon arriving, we were served a delicious lunch and lounged around a bit in the sun outside - it was the first time all trip that the weather finally hit 80 degrees! The family with which we were staying have an adorable three-legged cat (named Champion) - unfortunately, I'm allergic to cats. This cat was mostly OK, but I did get a bit sneezy.
After a couple hours, we headed out to a few local attractions. Our first destination was Bear Country USA, a drive-through wildlife park. We saw a variety of animals, naturally including the park's namesake bears:
After Bear Country, we drove to one of the area's minor attractions - Mount Rushmore. I probably don't need to say very much about this one, except that it really is as neat as it seems like it would be. Mt Rushmore promises giant heads carved out of a mountain, Mt Rushmore delivers.
Our final stop for the day was one that I'd never heard of which may be even more impressive than Rushmore. The Crazy Horse Memorial is a project in a similar vein to Mt Rushmore - it will be a carving of Lakota hero Crazy Horse into a mountain fairly close to Rushmore - but completely different in scale. Rushmore looks (and is) big, but the Crazy Horse carving is huge; all four faces of the Rushmore carving would fit in Crazy Horse's head. The CH carving is incomplete; the only fully-defined portion is Crazy Horse's head, and the final product is supposed to have him riding a horse, pointing off into the distance. At night, they have a neat light and laser show on the side of the memorial. I hadn't heard of this one before, but it was well worth the trip:
The reason this post wasn't written last night is because we got back, and my lungs, reacting to the cat, promptly decided that staying open wasn't really too important. It wasn't that bad of an asthma attack, but breathing seemed a better use of energy than blogging.
Tomorrow (planned): Rapid City, SD to Pierre, SD
Why didn't they complete it? Too lazy?
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