Current Location: Sioux Falls, SD, N 43 31.100', W 096 46.748', elev. 1395 ft.

Sunday I woke up in Douglas Wyoming, and drove north on Wyoming 59 for two hours until I reached the town of Gillette, and the intersection of I-90. I followed I-90 east to the town of Moorcat, where I veered north and east on US 14.



This means something

US 14 took me up to Devils Tower National Monument, the fist national monument. Driving up, I was expecting to see the monument at any moment, and when I got about 20 miles away, I could finally see it. Despite the distance, I was still awed to see it.



It is very strange to see this huge monolith, sticking up in the middle of the prairie land. Driving up to the monument itself, I was very surprised to see how textured the sides are. Reading up at the visitor center, the Lakota and other tribes all had an origin story to explain the tower, right down to the detail of the side texture. Devils Tower is sacred in many Indian cultures.



I spent a while at the monument, hiking all around, admiring the views and watching the rock climbers.



Rock climbers

Finally, I started driving out of the monument, but not before stopping at the prairie dog town. The prairie dogs are very interesting to watch, as they scurry around the town area, going into their little burrows. They make a cheep cheep barking sound which can only be described as cute.



Prairie Dogs

From Devils Tower (view the rest of the photos here), I kept on heading east and south on Wyoming 585, eventually reaching US 16, passing into South Dakota. I passed a lot of cattle along the way, and for the first time on the trip, I found myself mooing at all the cows I passed, I couldn't stop. I think this is the first sign that madness has set in. US 16 led me through the town of Custer, where I continued north past Crazy Horse Memorial. I wanted to stop at Crazy Horse, but it was getting late, and I was on a mission to see Mount Rushmore, and I was afraid it would be closing. I finally arrived at Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Driving into the park, you get a very cool side view of George Washington, which is very impressive.



Mount Rushmore is an incredible place, very beautiful to see. There is a parking lot, where they charge you $8 to park, and the national park pass doesn't give you a discount. It is a little ironic, Mount Rushmore is featured on this year's National Park Pass, but the pass doesn't really do anything for you in the park, since the parking lot is run by an outside company. I walked the 1.5 mile trail through the park, taking lots and lots of photos of the very cool memorial.



When I entered the park, I was informed there was an evening program, beginning at 8PM where they light the monument, so I decided to stick around a few hours and wait for that. By 8 PM, the park's amphitheater was full of families anticipating the program. The lights around the monument were all turned off, and a park range came out and gave a neat program about the history of the monument, the project to carve it, and the history of the Lakota and other Indians from the area. It was a very cool program, and at the very end, everyone was asked to join in the singing of the national anthem and America the Beautiful as the memorial was slowly lit up. I captured this moving scene on video, but unfortunately don't have enough room on my webserver to load up the file.



You can view all the photos from Rushmore here. At the end of the program, I rushed out to my car, because it was getting late and I wanted to beat the traffic out of the garage so I'd be able to find a place to sleep at a reasonable hour. I was one of the first people in the garage, and I started up my car. It had the air conditioning and the stereo on, and recently, I've been having a few power problems when backing up with the AC on. I forgot about this and started to back up to leave, and my car completely stalled out dead. I tried to start it back up several times with no luck. I kept trying and in the meanwhile, people started to file into the garage. I was getting panicked, I thought I would need a jump, I was convinced my car had a battery or power problem. I couldn't get my keys out of the ignition, which should have been a clue to me, but I popped my trunk to get out my jumper cables. This is a huge hassle, since the cables are buried in the tire well of the car, under all the other items in my trunk. I had to remove all those items to get out the cables. I popped the hood of the car and decided to wait for the people from one of the cars next to me. As I was waiting, I decided to try the ignition a few more times. While in the car, I realized I never put the car back into park after it stalled. Of course it won't start while in reverse. I put the car back into park, and it started with no problems. Yes, Mom, Dad, your son is a tremendous idiot. I piled all my stuff back into the car and made my way out of the garage very slowly. From the memorial, I drove north on US 16 to the town of Rapid City, South Dakota, (N 44 06.144', W 103 12.070', elev. 3356 ft.), where I stopped for the night.

In the morning, I drove east on I-90, passing through Badlands National Park. Badlands was cool, but not really worth a lot of description as I have seen many similar places so far on the trip. The highlight was seeing some bighorn sheep.



The grass the sheep are eating smelled like a cross between a skunk and marijuana

You can check out the Badlands photos here. South Dakota is actually a much cooler state than I had assumed it would be, with a lot of history and a lot of interesting destinations. It is worth a visit. There is also a lot of Jesus, as I passed a ton of religious billboards and churches. I continued east on I-90, and along the way, I passed into the central time zone and my car passed 90,000 miles. Holy. Crap. I arrived in Sioux Falls by the end of the day, and stopped for the night. My intention originally was to head north from Sioux Falls and spend the night in Fargo, just so I could say I had been to North Dakota, but my travel had been delayed longer than I had calculated, and lost the hour passing into central, so it would have been way too late by the time I arrived in Fargo. Now that I am back in the central time zone, I am starting to realize I don't have a lot of trip left. Most of my itinerary the rest of the way is baseball games, and no more national parks.