Day 13—goodbye Wyoming, it’s been real…

We have been in the state of Wyoming for 8 days if I’m counting correctly (which I may not be, considering I’ve not looked at a calendar almost this entire month!) and so it’s with a little sadness that we bid you a fond farewell. Thanks for the amazing scenery—your snowcapped mountains, rolling hills, loads of wildlife and just miles of endless nothing are a refreshing change of scenery to people who are used to a nail salon and gas station on every corner! We would, however, like to introduce you to the wonders of honey mustard—try it, you might like it!!

We left Thermopolis this morning, headed toward the Black Hills area of South Dakota (another new state for us!). But first, there was another mountain range to drive through—the Big Horn Mountains. (As a side note, Michael loves to make fun of me for taking these ‘landscape pictures’ while we’re driving down the road—but I like to do it because it’s easy to forget how beautiful and different it is from home! Not to mention, how much fun is a blog without pictures?!) So without further ado, I present ‘the Big Horn Mountains’:

We arrived in the Black Hills just a little after lunch time and picked up our rental van in the town of Custer. A pre-trip dvd about Mount Rushmore had alerted us to the many scenic drives around the area—that would NOT allow an RV to pass through them—so we thought a rental van might be a good idea. Although Emma was disappointed that we could not get the convertible pictured in the dvd, it was VERY nice to be driving these curving roads in something smaller! The designer of these roads built them especially so that you could see Mount Rushmore through the tunnel approaches—and the promised view did not disappoint.

(the money shot)

We arrived at Mount Rushmore in the late afternoon and found it fairly crowded—I think we are starting to hit the summer season of tourism in the west (glad we are on our way home soon!). We found the Georgia flag on the Avenue of Flags and proceeded down to the viewing area for some more photos.

The girls were pleased to find out that Mount Rushmore also has a Jr. Ranger program—and the booklet was short enough that they were able to complete it and earn their 3rd badge of this trip. We all enjoyed a little history lesson by watching a movie about the mountain and touring the visitor’s center. And we got our question answered as to why these 4 specific presidents were chosen to be on the mountain—I knew they were ‘special’ presidents but didn’t know exactly the reason they were picked. Click on the picture of the plaque to find out if you don’t know either!

After leaving Rushmore, we headed back into the town of Custer and found a place to eat dinner. Then we headed over to the Purple Pie Place (I had read reviews that it was a ‘do not miss’ location)—we tried apple and peanut butter—and the peanut butter was the hands down winner, I think! Michael was rolling his eyes at me for taking pictures of the girls at the pie place—so I got him back by taking one of him in the van! We rolled back into our campground at Custer State Park around 8:30 pm—spotting more than a dozen deer and one bison along the way. Tomorrow is Wind Cave and the Custer Wildlife Road and I’m not sure what else the day will bring… the weather here is very nice so I’m sure we’ll be outside if possible!