Thursday, September 23. Devil's Tower

 Or maybe the 24th. It's  vacation and I never know what day it is. But I'm pretty sure we had Devil's Tower planned for this day.

But first we got ready for the day by having a little breakfast at our hotel in Rapid City. We ate, packed up the car and headed out.

Our goal was to get to NORTH DAKOTA. Neither of us had been there, so off we went. Took the photos, then turned right around. And we aren't the only ones. Ha. A family from Florida was doing the same thing. Ha ha.

On our way, we saw a lovely National Cemetery. Those are white headstones, all in a row .

Wide open spaces. Everywhere. Very wide. Very open.

In all directions. Here we are, approaching the North Dakota border. That's as far north as we went.

We back-tracked to Buffalo, SD. Got gas, ate Gas Station Food for lunch. In our car. Out of the wind.

The route that my GPS mapped out was from Buffalo, down through a corner of Montana, then to Wyoming to the Devil's Tower. Only Highway 20 ended up being an UN-Paved "highway." That was interesting. We could have turned around, but figured staying on the prescribed route would make for a better story. 

How long WAS this UN-Paved road? About 80 miles.

Lots of nothingness, lots of deer and antelope. Mostly antelope, but I had a hard time getting decent photos of them.

There were a few cattle, too.

Trees along the Box Elder and Little Missouri River beds.

And more dirt road.

Deer!

And we were in the middle of a beautiful nowhere. Fall is in the air. The unpaved highway ran fairly parallel to the Little Missouri River. The river path was FULL of cottonwood trees, all in their full Fall Splendor. Lovely. And there were lots of antelope EVERYwhere. And deer. 

We do love seeing all the fall leaves, water in streams and rivers, and wildlife.

Eventually we made it onto paved roads and smoother sailing. We made it to Devil's Tower, I walked the short interpretive trail, and Mike walked through the Visitor's Center. But first we stopped outside the Park and (sort-of) enjoyed some ice cream and the view. The ice cream was hand-scooped, but not really great. Certainly not worth the $12 price tag. Oh well. It's vacation, right?

After flatlands were some hills.

Logging is big in this area.

They actually have water in this part of Wyoming. Real rivers and streams and canals!

From Devil's Tower, we drove on toward Gillette, our night's destination. We did take a detour around a lake neighborhood near "Keyhole Reservoir". It was a big lake, and we saw only one boat and two seagulls.  We just enjoyed more antelope. And very little traffic. 

We found our hotel easily in Gillette. Quality Inn. King size bed, clean room. Whew. We ate out at Applebee's. I had Nacho's. Mike had chicken and shrimp. 

Tomorrow, we drive off to Lander,WY.

And I'd love to add photos, but my phone can't seem to find the updated ones I took today. Lots of "middle of nowhere" shots and far-away antelope. And rocks. And trees. I'll try again tomorrow.

Oh, yes. As we were traversing the dirt road, I mentioned to Mike that the road parallels a river. Mike said, "I hope we don't have to ford it!" Yep, the road was that remote. (We didn't). 

Also, while travelling on that very VERY long dirt road, we could see a large vehicle barrelling toward us, way far off in the distance. A truck? There was a large gravel truck behind us and one had gone by us in the opposite direction....but the on-coming one in the distance seemed to have only one large headlight and looked like a train locomotive! But the dust cloud behind it??? Mike decided it was using the same wonky GPS as us and that train had gone off the track and was lost, too, rumbling across the prairies and hills. (It really was just a gravel truck.)

I also should mention that we enjoyed a few rousing renditions of "Home on the Range" together. Very loudly. Ending in laughter. 😁