Devil's Tower

Devil's Tower is our country's first national monument proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.  His action made Wyoming the home of both our first national park - Yellowstone in 1872 and our first national monument.  Some 5,000 climbers come every year from all over the world to climb these massive columns!

Buffalo Bill Center of the West - Cody, Wyoming

Long live the Wild West!!   We spent today & yesterday visiting this Smithsonian Affiliated Museum.  It's actually a center of 5 museums - Buffalo Bill, Draper Natural History, Plains Indian, Whitney Western Art & Cody Firearms Museum.  There was so much to see and not enough time.  To really grasp everything in this museum, you would have to visit year round to truly take it all in.  It was fabulous!

We finished our day with a couple of beers at local Millstone & Pat O'Leary's Breweries! 

Custer State Park

Custer State Park is a beautiful park in the Mount Rushmore area.  We especially enjoyed riding the wild life loop as we saw many animals, including Big Horn Sheep, Mules &Prong Horns.  Our goal was to see Bison which we didn't see until we were leaving the park.  There was a Bison standing on the side of the road by itself in the woods.  Of course....we were beside ourselves ex

cited!  

Touring & Needles Highway

We did the best we could to avoid the thousands of motor cyclists visiting this area.  Their annual rally is held each year in Sturgis, SD just a few miles away.  They love the mountain rides & especially the infamous Needles Highway.  We toured many different routes while in the area for a week.  Needles Highway was hands  down our favorite!   

Mount Rushmore!

When sculptor Gutzon Borglum looked upon the knobby, cracked face of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he saw a vision of four United States Presidents carved into the mountain.  Between 1927 & 1941, with the help of over 400 workers & several influential politicians, he began carving a memorial to the history of America. 

I visited this in 1964 & it still amazes me.  How could they actually carve this on a mountain?  The monument is still the same but all the buildings and crowds around it differ from the quietness of the times when I first saw it.  Now there are parking garages & attendants everywhere, gift shops, restaurants & so much more.  It almost takes away from the magnitude of this display.  I tried to shut it out and capture those memories from when I was a little girl who marveled at the faces on this mountain top. 

Ha Ha!

Our friends Debbie & Rick from Gulf Waters RV Resort met up and stayed at our campground.  It was nice seeing a familiar face after being on the road so long. 

Badlands & The Black Hills

No words of mine can describe these Bad Lands.  One set of buttes, with cones & minarets, gives place in next mile to natural freaks of different variety never dreamed of by mortal man.....The painters' whole palette  is in one bluff.  -Fredrick Remington, American Landscape Painter & Exporer.

Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands was established as a National Monument in 1939 & became a National Park in 1978.  The south half is located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation & is co-managed  with the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

We left the interstate to take this scenic drive through Badllands.  We came across this beautiful statue called Dignity *Earth & Sky*.  It was truly breath-taking, both Dignity & our ride through Badlands.

We saw our first ever Prairie Dog!  They were everywhere.  So cute!  They leave their holes & other small animals take over.  

Wish you were here with us!

The Corn Palace!

Mitchell, South Dakota - Home of the Corn Palace!  This is the World's only Corn Palace dating back to 1892.  275,000 colorful ears of corn are sliced & nailed into place on the murals that adorn this building.  It's all done by hand, a folk art that is all but lost.  Originally, there were 34 palaces in the Midwest.  The murals change every year. 

This palace is awesome and worth seeing.  It's situated in an all American small town with the nicest people.  We enjoyed scouring the gift shop inside while hunting for souvenirs.  It was a lot of fun to visit and a very nice surprise, as we didn't know it even existed.