Today we had a travel day so we hooked Charlotte to the Barbarian Invader and departed Heartland RV Park in Hermosa, SD, and headed north on SD-79 to Rapid City. We turned west on I-90, passing through Sturgis, SD, where, fortunately, the annual biker get-together and fisticuffs extravaganza was over. We continued on I-90 across the South Dakota / Wyoming border to Sundance where we pulled into Mountain View RV Park & Campground. This park has spaces that are pretty tight but they have CATV and good wi-fi along with full hook-ups.
The drive today was less than 2 hours. We set up the Barbarian and started the air conditioning. After an hour of doing nothing except watching the nice cable TV they have here, we got bored and decided to go for a spin. We took in all three blocks of the main drag of Sundance before getting on US-14, a single lane road through some amazing Wyoming countryside. We had not gone more than about 10 miles before we had counted 27 deer grazing in the exquisite grasslands adjacent to the road.
We continued on for about 20 miles on US-14 until we turned north on WY-24. We descended into an enormous canyon with red walls reminiscent of Utah’s Bryce Canyon or the Grand Canyon and then we spotted Devil’s Tower. It is a huge hombre and you can spot it about 10 miles out. We were able to pass the gate without paying due to our recently renewed federal access pass and we took the three mile road right up to the base of this giant vertical monster. We arrived in the parking lot and immediately saw the usual horde of Oriental tourists taking pictures of each other and parked cars. We passed through the lot and returned home because we are going back tomorrow, hopefully by the same route because it was gorgeous terrain.
On the way home Peggy asked to pull over at a local farmer’s market where she visited all the tables and left quite satisfied with herself.