19 Jan 07 Gillette, Wyoming

 After a couple of days of pretty flat land and hard driving, today was chock-full of interest. We were on the road in time to see the sunrise in our rear view mirrors and pulled off to get a better look. It was beautiful – there is such an expanse of sky out here that it is quite amazing. Our first adventure was the scenic loop through the Bandlands.  What wonderful formations and colours! The road is only about 35 miles long, but we made frequent stops and took many photos. We walked one very short trail, to the edge of a canyon and then one longer one that climbed above a very interesting rock formation, through the woods. At one overlook we could see two herds of white-tailed deer, about 15 deer per herd. Interesting that they divide up so evenly – Larry commented that he didn’t know they could count! We stopped at the Visitors’ Center to watch the movie about the area. It seems that it is equally brown in summer as now. Checkout the day's photos altogether

  

  
The road brought us out at Wall, South Dakota – home of the famous Wall Drug Stores. It’s much more than a drug store now. The complex takes up a whole long block of the downtown area, and includes several areas with specialty shops and a restaurant. We picked up a few souvenirs and admired the local crafts, including the beautiful Black Hills gold which is several colours (yellow, white, pink, green ). My dad bought my mom a broach of it when he came here hunting about 45 years ago, and she still wears it occasionally. It had warmed up a bit – we even ate our picnic lunch in the Wall Drug parking lot, after nearly perishing at the early stops in the Badlands. Our next stop was Mt. Rushmore. The road is long and winds up and downhill. There were few cars, just as there have been for a day or two, on the highway. Anyway – Mount Rushmore looks like the pictures, but also not. It’s higher on the mountain than I expected and the carvings are a bit smaller. Great to visit. Amazing to imagine carving it out of the mountain.   From there we took a cross-country route back to I-90 through the Black Hills National Forest, passing through the famous frontier town of Deadwood. Turns out there’s a casino about every 3 feet all over town. Now we’ve stopped for the night at the Quality Inn in Gillette Wyoming. Big plans for tomorrow and fingers crossed for a few more days of good weather.

All Photos 19 Jan 2007