South Dakota Day 2

Happy Father's Day!

We left Casper around 8:30 and drove to Devil’s Tower National Monument. Before we headed out, we gave our Father's Day gifts to Dad. We wanted to let Dad know we loved him even if we were on the road for Father's Day.

It was a pretty long drive, but we passed hundreds of antelope and a few white-tailed deer along the way. When we arrived, the boys already had their Junior Rangers done except for a hike so we started around the tower. It’s 1.3 miles, and it took us nearly an hour to get all the way around. The monument is pretty cool, though, and we enjoyed the walk and the nice pine forest. At one point, we saw a five foot long bull snake slither off the path into the rocks.  There were chipmunks and rock climbers to spot, too.

Devil's Tower is the first National Monument ever created.

Mark couldn't believe the cracks the rock climbers use were so small.

The railroad wanted to use dynamite to blow up Devil's Tower.
That's the reason it was protected.

This was one of the prettiest snakes wer've seen.

The bull snake hurried under a rock.

Seth wanted to hold up this rock.

The tower stands out with nothing like it anywhere nearby.

We took a picture in front of the Visitor's Center.

After Devil’s Tower we drove into Spearfish and turned south. It was our plan to stop and visit three waterfalls on SR-14A. We didn’t know we’d be winding through some steep canyons. The drive was really beautiful through the Black Hills, though. The motorhome (and Glen) did all right on narrow winding road, too. The first falls we stopped at was called Bridal Veil Falls. We looked at it from the overlook at the road and then climbed down and crossed the river to see it from the bottom. The river was really just a stream, but we had to tightrope it on two narrow logs. Luckily, nobody ended up with feet that were too wet.

Dad doesn't like phones, but on a 6 hour drive, he might play a word game or two.

The wildflowers were really pretty.

This is the overlook for Bridal Veil Falls.

Mom with most of her boys.

Tyler thought he could do the walk without the logs.

Dad helped Nate (and everyone else) keep feet dry.

We love waterfalls, and this one was a beauty!

The second waterfall was up another narrow canyon a mile off the road. We unhooked the truck and drove to a beautiful park. This waterfall is called Roughlock Falls. It was difficult to get a picture, because we were above the falls. It was pretty neat, though. The river cascaded down a narrow sort of grotto about 50 feet. There wasn’t much of a walk to this one, either. It was only about a hundred yards from the road.

That's about the best picture we could get of Roughlock Falls.

Mark spotted this bird in the tree.

Roughlock was a pretty waterfall, too.

The final waterfall, called Spearfish Falls was much trickier. We parked right at the top and looked down on it. It was a pretty tall cascade, but standing right above it, we really couldn’t see anything. There was a one and half mile hike to the bottom that we really would’ve liked to do, but it was already 6 pm, and we still had another hour into Sturgis, where we planned to eat. So we hooked the truck back up and went into eat at Dairy Queen.

This is just the tiptop of Spearfish Falls. It is much taller.

The Black Hills of South Dakota were really gorgeous.

That night we camped in Rapid City. We got in pretty late, but at least we finished most of the driving is done for a few days. We stayed around this area for most of the next few days.