Day 8: Devils Tower and South Dakota

Wyoming is more than just interstate highways and Walmarts. Next stop, Devil’s Tower! Mercifully, the drive was quite short–just over an hour. As we got close, we noticed the local welcoming committee.

The kids thought this was really cool and had to get a picture before we moved on.

Once we actually arrived at Devils Tower, we started out on the 1.3 mile hike around the base. The kids thought it was really cool and were surprisingly happy to pose for more pictures.

As we got to the east side of the tower, more and more big rocks appeared which absolutely required climbing.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped by aptly-named “Prairie Dog Town”, where the rangers had just fed them.

We’d parked a few miles away from the tower and took the car, just in case there was a shortage of parking. It turns out we could have just taken the RV the whole way.

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With still plenty of time in the day, it was time to move on to our next state, South Dakota! This was the first new state for all of us.

Earlier in the day, I’d noticed that Deadwood wasn’t that far off our route, so I suggested we check it out–at least drive through it. We followed the signs to the historic area and figured we probably shouldn’t drive the RV down the main street, but with a combination of laziness and #YOLO attitude, a few minutes later we were doing it.

Aside from the annoyed look we got from the trolley driver, it went pretty well.

That was enough Deadwood for us. On to the RV park! About an hour later we, arrived at our stop for the night, the Mount Rushmore KOA at Palmer Gulch. This place is massive–I heard it’s the 2nd largest KOA in the country–with hundreds of spots, and it was almost completely full.

It was getting late, so we wasted no time in finding the pool, so the kids were thrilled again.

That was about all we could handle, so it was back to the RV and an early bedtime for all of us.