In the West!!--July 20-22

In a laundrymat in Cody, Wyoming this morning (Thurs July 23)--with wifi!!

July 20

We said goodbye to beautiful Niobrara State Park and headed toward South Dakota. We had not seen a grocery store in several days, and were happy to come upon a nice local grocery in Gregory SD, Buche Foods. There was a nice statue of a pheasant next door---I understand the pheasant’s name is Butch!

We had another day of driving through beautiful countryside in Nebraska and South Dakota. We took a detour through one of my favorite places, the Badlands. I have had 2 memorable hikes in the Badlands on previous visits, so we chose to just drive through this time—they are spectacular and worth the effort to visit..

We got all settled in in Blue Bell Campground (Claude and Elaine in a cute little cabin) in Custer State Park in the Black Hills, played some tunes, and I went on a hike. After supper, we turned in early




July 21
Adjacent to Custer State Park is Wind Cave National Park , home to the 6th largest cave in the world. We spent 1.5 hours touring the Wind Cave, and what a place! Our tour guide was a young man from WVA, and he did a great job.

After the cave tour we had lunch at Wooly’s in Hot Springs (mighty fine!) and then spent some time walking downtown. We then drove NPS Rd 6 and the Wildgame Loop through Wind Cave NP and Custer State Park—great scenery, antelope, prairie dogs, bison—the Black Hills, as my friend Marty says, rock!

We finished up our driving for the day on the Irion Mountain Loop, more spectacular scenery and a view of Mount Rushmore.

Chicken bog for supper, off to bed, and we leave in the morning for Cody Wyoming!



July 22
We headed out early for a long drive across Wyoming. Billie and I stopped off at Devils Tower (remember from Close Encounters of The Third Kind?). We had seen it from the road before, but made the effort to see it up close this time--well worth the effort! As we passed through the gate we were encouraged to leave the trailer at a parking lot on the way up--we chose to drive on up and managed to find a spot to park with the trailer. Lots of Rock at the bottom that you don't see very well from the road. There was a group climbing the rock! I tried to photo them but they were too far to catch up close. One photo below is one of many prayer cloths around the base. We had a very nice hike around the bottom of Devils Tower.



A long day of driving after leaving Devils Tower. There are so many different landscapes in Wyoming. After leaving I90, we traveled Rd 14 through the spectacular Big Horn Forest, including the Big Horn Canyon on the backside.



Freers, Siglers, and Graves were already checked into the campground, so we decided to meet them in Cody for Casey's birthday supper at Wyoming Rib and Chop House----Happy Birthday Casey!!



Billie and I finally made it to Buffalo Bill State Park, hooked up, and hit the sack. Here are a couple of shots from this morning (July 23).