States & Provinces visited on this segment: North Dakota, Wyoming, and South Dakota
Dates: Sunday July 1 to Wednesday July 4
Miles driven: 630 (2850 total to date)
Summary: We left Medora on Sunday morning and headed east on I94 for ~30 miles before heading south on US Hwy 85, crossing into South Dakota around midday. We decided to take a detour to Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, so at Belle Fourche we headed west towards Wyoming, hoping to have our own “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”. We spent the night at a nice campground right at the entrance to Devils Tower. We had a great view of Devils Tower from our campsite. At the campground they were playing the movie, but that was as close as we got to seeing any aliens. I told the kids the aliens came when they were asleep, but they didn’t buy my story. On Monday morning we drove into the National Monument and went through the visitor center and took the short hike to the base of the tower. The kids worked on completing their junior ranger activities while I hiked the loop trail around the base of the tower. One of the junior ranger requirements was to pick up litter. The kids couldn’t find any, so a woman who happened to overhear them talking was nice enough to take a candy wrapper out of her pocket, tear it in half, and “litter” so each of the kids would have a piece of litter to pick up and bring back to put in the garbage can at the visitor center. After leaving Devils Tower we headed south, joining up with I90 at Sundance. We then headed east on I90 back into South Dakota. We continued east on I90 to Rapid City, and then headed south on US 16 to Custer.
We ended up spending 3 nights camped at Custer which is centrally located in the Black Hills. On Tuesday we started the day by going to Jewel Cave National Monument. Jewel Cave is the 2nd longest known cave in the world, with over 139 miles of mapped passageways. We took an hour and a half tour through the cave and then spent additional time at the visitor center while Elizabeth and Matthew completed their junior ranger badges. One of the focus area of study in Matthew’s class next year is going to be caves so Matthew was excited to visit the cave, get pictures of the cave, as well as purchase a couple of books on caves and pick up additional information to share with his class next school year. After leaving Jewel Cave we went to Wind Cave National Park. We didn’t tour the cave, but Matthew picked up some additional information at the visitor center on this cave which is the 4th longest known cave in the world. We then drove north through the park and then through Custer State Park. We saw lots of bison, pronghorn antelope, deer, and wild burros. We thought we would try and go to the Independence Day celebration at Mt. Rushmore (which they hold on July 3rd, not the 4th), so we continued northwest to Mt. Rushmore. Despite getting there 3-4 hours before the festivities were going to start we found out that we would have to park and walk ~3 miles (one way) if we wanted to see the celebration. We decided it wasn’t worth that much effort. On the 4th we returned to Mt Rushmore National Memorial and went through the visitor center, sculptor Borglum’s studio, and the paths up to the sculpture. The kids gathered information for their junior ranger badges along the way. After leaving Mt. Rushmore we did some scenic drives trough the Black Hills, including the Needles Highway. We returned to our campsite and watched the Custer fireworks from the campground.
.Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part4MedoraToCuster
Next up: De Smet South Dakota (setting of several of Laura Ingalls Wlder’s “Little House” books)
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