Rawlins, Wyoming. Home of Penny's Diner, where we ate dinner and this two-sided car.
We drove past Devil's Gate and Martin's Cove, as shown here, as well as Independence Rock, which is just a few miles north of here.
The Black Hills are pretty. We ate a lot of buffalo burgers, steaks and ribs.
This is the view from our hotel room in Keystone. Lots of tourist traps in the black hills. This creek would become a raging river two days later due to all of the rain from Sunday and Monday.
Saturday we drove down to the Windcave National Park. We were fortunate to get tickets for the 1:00 tour, and saw the delicate box work in the cave.
We kept driving south and saw the mammoth pit museum that houses tons of mammoths that fell into a sink hole. We liked the telephone tours.
We ate at a nice restraunt in Custer, then went to Crazy Horse for the Lazer Light Show. It broke into rain just after this picture was taken, and didn't stop until Monday. I was impressed with how a Polish sculptor who apprenticed on Mt. Rushmore was asked to do a monument for the Dakotas. He decided to devote his life to it. His family of 10 kids have continued the effort. It made me want to be a billionaire so that I could donate money and help them finish it more quickly.
We caught glimpses of Mt Rushmore through the fog. I will never forget the lighting of the monument ceremony in the pouring rain that resulted in a pink glowing fog because the light couldn't penetrate through to the faces.
We did return the next morning and got in on a 10 minute break in the fog and rain. It closed in behind us as we walked back to the car. You can see the unique veins in the granite rock that show up when it rains. Seeing this monument made me want to study American History more. If I took that class in New Mexico, I sure don't remember any of it.
We drove up through Dead Wood (home of Calamity Jane and others) and up to Devil's Tower. The road was washed out, so we had to go a long way.
I wanted to go up to one of the columns and hug it. You had to have a climbers permit to get off of the trail, so I settled for hugging one that fell down the mountain next to the trail. They are huge. There are 5,6,7,8 and 9 sided "Crystals".
Fun trip. Crazy girls. We're already planning a reunion where we watch the slideshow, and I will hand out Mt. Rushmore Rain Ponchos and we will eat buffalo wings.
