USA Day 54 - large mountain monuments

Total States Visited: 43
Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Motel 6, Sheridan, Wyoming

We were awoken early this morning by the engine of the Harley Davidson that was right outside our tent - definitely the loudest alarm clock I have ever had! We decided that we would treat ourselves to a Denny's breakfast but were amazed at the huge queue of bikers waiting. Because we were only a party of 2 (everyone else were in groups of at least 4), we were seated quite quickly at a little 2 person table. After a delicious and fulfilling breakfast, we headed out of Rapid City for the town of Keystone.

 

Driving towards today's first large mountain monuments, we couldn't believe how many bikers were around. Neither of us could believe that with all the research we did that we didn't find out about the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. All the towns had marquees and large tents setup selling various Sturgis related items, as well as various things that they thought would appeal to bikers. As we continued on out of the town, we arrived at the Mount Rushmore Memorial. Once again, we couldn't get over the number of bikers, including a large Norwegian contingent. After helping other tourists by using their cameras to take photos of them standing in front of the famous mountain, we couldn't help but get a photo with Teddy...

 

Just around the corner, we ventured to today's second large mountain monument, the Crazy Horse Memorial. Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader who took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories, is best known for leading a war party to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. The monument is funded purely by visitors and is a work in progress that will take many many years to complete. Even though only his head has been completed, it was a spectacular sight to see.

 

Not far from the memorial we found Boyd's Antiques and from the look of the place we had to stop. While more of a junk scrapyard than antique store, there were lots of amazing things in there - most notably was large donkey. At first we thought it was a stuffed one but then it moved and revealed that it isn't dead, just very old. With the owner apologising that his beloved pet and snuck into the store, we bought some stuff where we got a strange 2 dollar bill in our change. Having never heard of a 2 dollar bill, we half expected that it was fake, but worth keeping anyway. Back on the road, we felt like we were the only non-motorcycle around. Driving through one of the towns we saw the "Armed Old Lady On Patrol" store that was trying to appeal to the largest market possible.

 
 

After driving through the Black Hills National Forest, we crossed the border into Wyoming where we saw a very nasty storm on the horizon. As we continued driving, the storm got closer and closer until suddenly we were driving through it! With mini funnels forming and tornado country just one state away, we were a little concerned. Thankfully it didn;t have a very fast rotation and didn't turn into anything that could pick up our car and throw it across the picturesque country side. It did shake the car a fair bit though...

 
 

Coming out of the storm, we found ourselves at today's third large mountain monument, Devil's Tower. Made famous from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this would have to be one of the few places that wasn't on our original itinerary but after we watched the movie Paul where they visit the Tower, we couldn't believe we had forgotten it. I am so glad we came here, even if we had to deal with lots of bikers to get to the rather ordinary gift shop.

 

 

Back on the road, we almost broke the TomTom with our next destination that required us to drive straight for 460km! Now that is a record for us that I doubt we will ever break! Driving through the afternoon, we arrived at the town of Sheridan where we found a very nice Hotel 6. After checking in, we headed into the town where we had to drive around numerous roadworks to get to the main street. Finally off the back streets, we drove around for a while until we found Ole's Pizza & Spaghetti House where we had some fabulous pizza.