Memorial Day 2017

Mark: So what do you want to do for the Memorial Day Weekend?

Me: *stunned silence*

Mark:  What's wrong with you?

Me:  You never ask me first lol

So what we ended up deciding on doing was going to do a few Bucket List items for Mark.  And that's not to say that I didn't want to do some of these things myself but I had done a few of them before so they weren't still on my list. Got it?

So here's what we did. 

Mark flew into Denver from North Dakota on Thursday and as soon as he hit the house we headed north and drove as far as Cheyenne, Wyoming.  It should have been an easy drive but between the severe thunderstorms that were blowing through the area and the traffic it took us a little longer than normal to get there.  But we didn't get in too terribly late and we had a good night's rest there.

We were up bright and early on Friday because we knew we had some distances to travel. Our first stop was Devils Tower in Northern Wyoming. For those of you who are *ahem* older, you may recognize this place from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" circa 1977.  Those who are reading this and don't have a clue what I'm talking about need to go Google it.  But I digress.  Mark loved the movie (go figure 😉) and had always wanted to see the landmark partly because of the movie and partly because of the geologist geek in him. 

And to be quite honest- the place is pretty impressive.  We got there around noon and spent several hours walking around the base of it and watching rock climbers scale the sheer sides of it. 

We realized that we still had some more traveling to do before the end of the day so we then headed east to South Dakota.  Our first stop there was in Spearfish.  We originally wanted to go to the National Fish Hatchery but realized that it was too late in the day to start on a tour.  So the next place we went was Deadwood.  We would have loved to have walked  around the downtown area and the famous cemetery but there was a torrential downpour and we didn't want to get out in it with the lightening and rain.  So those two things will just have to be on our "next time we are here" list.  We also drove through Sturgis and neither one of us had any desire to stop there for any reason.  That night we ended up in Wall, SD.

Downtown Deadwood

On Saturday 

we got up early and went to the famous Wall Drug Store in Wall.  If you've ever been out on the highways I'm sure some of you have seen bumper stickers that say something about Wall Drug.  I won't bore you with the details about this place but for those of you who are interested here is the low-down on the place.  But the way-We didn't get ice water or the 5 cent coffee. All I can say about the place is that it sells just about everything a tourist trap could offer.

 

 

Our next Bucket List stop was the Badlands of South Dakota.  Gosh I could just go on and on about this place.  It was simply gorgeous.  We started off on the top of the mesa and then drove to the bottom of the valley floor.  There was something unique around each twist and bend in the road and each scene was so different from all of the others but somehow just the same. This is a place that we both said that we wanted to return to once we hit the road full time.

When we finished we went to the Minuteman Missile National Park (Bucket List #3).  It basically is right outside of Badlands so we made a quick stop here.  We had originally wanted to tour the underground facilities that they have but we unfortunately didn't get tickets quickly enough.  They have them available only 30 days in advance and I forgot to get them on the day that they were first available.  I called the next day and they were all gone.  I guess others had the same idea as we did.  Oh well, this is also a "next time" thing to do.

 

After we finished with that and a quick bite to eat we headed down the road to Keystone, SD.  This is a small town about 4 miles from Mount Rushmore and since we had several places we wanted to visit in the area we decided to use it as base camp for a few days. 

 

Downtown Keystone

We got in town in the early evening so we didn't do anything other than grab a bite to eat and then went to bed.

The next morning we were up early and we headed south to Wind Cave.  We had heard that the tours fill up quickly so we wanted to take one of the earlier tours so that we could do other things that afternoon.  We got there in plenty of time and were lucky to get one of the first tours that morning.  It was probably one of the least favorite things that we did on this trip.  I guess having seen Carlsbad Caverns as many times as we have most caves just don't impress us much.   

So after we finished with that we headed to The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD.  Now this place was really worth going to.  It has the largest concentration of mammoth and other prehistoric fossils in North America found in one spot. 

That afternoon we drove into Custer State Park and did the Needles Highway and the Wildlife Loop.  The scenery was so beautiful and the wildlife was abundant.  We saw wild donkeys, lots and lots of bison, deer and antelope.  We stopped at several places and took a few short hikes along the way. 

Then we went back to see Mount Rushmore.  It was as beautiful as ever.  I had seen it once before when I was on a church trip with Henley but it was Mark's first time to see it.  We went to the museum, saw the Sculptor's studio and were half way around the hiking trail that takes you directly under the sculptures when a terrific lighting and rain storm forced us to run quickly back to shelter. We headed out of the park and had dinner before we went back to see the evening program.  It was cold and blustery but we made the best of it and stayed for the hour presentation.

The next morning we headed back home but on the way stopped at the Crazy Horse Memorial.  We got there just as it had opened so we were able to tour the museum and see the site without a million other tourists getting in our way!   

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we got home to an incredible hail storm that left about 3 inches of hail in the streets.  We really enjoyed exploring this part of the United States that we had never really been to.