Road Trip 2019 Day 2: Mount Rushmore & Devils Tower
Day 2 - 23 June 2019
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| Cheeky marveling the majesty of a giant Bison pie |
We arrived at Mount Rushmore a few minutes later. It was about 8am, so it wasn’t too busy, which was nice. We spent about 30 minutes marveling at our forefathers and walking the President’s trail.
We had Deadwood on our travel plan, but we have an Air BnB to get to before 10pm (shooting for 9), so we drove straight through and headed towards Devils Tower where we’d like to spend more time.
We crossed into Wyoming at 10:07am and arrived at Devils Tower about an hour later. Similar to our drive to Mount Rushmore, as we were driving to Devils Tower, all of a sudden it appeared in the distance. I gave a similar yelp! It looks amazing even from a distance! I kept thinking of Close Encounters of the Third Kind ("This means something, This is important."), as I’m sure many people do. The park was busy because it was a free for everyone day. Luckily we found a parking spot after no too long of a search, packed up our backpack and did the walk around the base of the tower. From what we read and what Ross was telling me, unlike the Badlands, this is not a giant glacier poop. The Native American myth is pretty cool. The story is that some Native Americans were on the top of the tower and a giant bear was clawing at them, which is how the tower got all it’s cool lines. Sounds good to me! The path was fairly crowded and at one point some obnoxiously loud kids were yelling to each other about vanilla vs chocolate ice cream. This one kid, clearly born well after 2000 was proclaiming that chocolate ice cream was “so 1990s.” Ross and I stopped walking so they could get far away from us. We decided to have a small picnic on a big rock and enjoy the scenery. We watched two climbers descending the tower and Ross explained how lead climbing works. After lunch, we finished the loop around the tower, and with good timing. It started to rain as we headed for one more bathroom stop and back to the car. It was time to head towards our lodging for he night.
Before settling in for the night, we wanted dinner, so we stopped in Cody, WY. We found Zapatas Mexican restaurant. After we were seated, we checked out the reviews and they were so-so, but our experienced matched up with what most people were saying. The service was slow and Ross’ order was a little bit wrong. I actually did not like his spinach enchiladas at all. He wanted green sauce, but got cream....yuck. My fajita burrito was good, but gigantic. Ross helped me work through that one. After dinner we found that there was a local brewery, Pat O’Hara Brewing, in town, so we walked a few blocks down the street for a beverage. Ross had a beer called Attitude Adjustment, from the local brewery and I had a cherry cider from a Montana brewery. Both were tasty. After that, it was finally time to head to our lodging.
We were planning to arrive in Wapiti by 9pm and rolled up at 8:51. Nailed it. This night was our first Air BnB. A tipi! Our host Laura greeted us and showed us where the bathrooms were and the goats and guard llamas. The llamas were definitely suspicious of us. The goats, one in particular, was very noisy and probably just looking for snacks. All we had were scratches for them. Cute! The views here were great. Mountains all around. We were staying in the purple tipi called Purple Reign. There was a queen size bed, a dresser, and outlets inside. The bed was comfy and we had lots of blankets to keep us warm. It was fun to stay in a place other than a hotel!
Stats
Miles driven: 497.6
Hours of Travel: 15
Steps: 10,773
Miles walked: 4.6
Alien Encounters: 0
We crossed into Wyoming at 10:07am and arrived at Devils Tower about an hour later. Similar to our drive to Mount Rushmore, as we were driving to Devils Tower, all of a sudden it appeared in the distance. I gave a similar yelp! It looks amazing even from a distance! I kept thinking of Close Encounters of the Third Kind ("This means something, This is important."), as I’m sure many people do. The park was busy because it was a free for everyone day. Luckily we found a parking spot after no too long of a search, packed up our backpack and did the walk around the base of the tower. From what we read and what Ross was telling me, unlike the Badlands, this is not a giant glacier poop. The Native American myth is pretty cool. The story is that some Native Americans were on the top of the tower and a giant bear was clawing at them, which is how the tower got all it’s cool lines. Sounds good to me! The path was fairly crowded and at one point some obnoxiously loud kids were yelling to each other about vanilla vs chocolate ice cream. This one kid, clearly born well after 2000 was proclaiming that chocolate ice cream was “so 1990s.” Ross and I stopped walking so they could get far away from us. We decided to have a small picnic on a big rock and enjoy the scenery. We watched two climbers descending the tower and Ross explained how lead climbing works. After lunch, we finished the loop around the tower, and with good timing. It started to rain as we headed for one more bathroom stop and back to the car. It was time to head towards our lodging for he night.
Before settling in for the night, we wanted dinner, so we stopped in Cody, WY. We found Zapatas Mexican restaurant. After we were seated, we checked out the reviews and they were so-so, but our experienced matched up with what most people were saying. The service was slow and Ross’ order was a little bit wrong. I actually did not like his spinach enchiladas at all. He wanted green sauce, but got cream....yuck. My fajita burrito was good, but gigantic. Ross helped me work through that one. After dinner we found that there was a local brewery, Pat O’Hara Brewing, in town, so we walked a few blocks down the street for a beverage. Ross had a beer called Attitude Adjustment, from the local brewery and I had a cherry cider from a Montana brewery. Both were tasty. After that, it was finally time to head to our lodging.
We were planning to arrive in Wapiti by 9pm and rolled up at 8:51. Nailed it. This night was our first Air BnB. A tipi! Our host Laura greeted us and showed us where the bathrooms were and the goats and guard llamas. The llamas were definitely suspicious of us. The goats, one in particular, was very noisy and probably just looking for snacks. All we had were scratches for them. Cute! The views here were great. Mountains all around. We were staying in the purple tipi called Purple Reign. There was a queen size bed, a dresser, and outlets inside. The bed was comfy and we had lots of blankets to keep us warm. It was fun to stay in a place other than a hotel!
Stats
Miles driven: 497.6
Hours of Travel: 15
Steps: 10,773
Miles walked: 4.6
Alien Encounters: 0
What an amazing vacation...(so far)...and more to come!
ReplyDeleteThe photos of all three of ya are so cool! (and the bison poop too?)
So wonderful seeing your adventure through your photos, blog, and Smiles! Keep 'em coming!
Love ya! ...NVous!
Meem