Road Trip 2nd Leg - Mt. Rushmore

After seeing the eclipse in Nebraska (click here for that post) we moved west to visit Mt. Rushmore - I've been wanting to see it for years and can now cross it off the travel bucket list!

The drive from Kearney to Mt. Rushmore took about 6 and 1/2 hours, an easy day of driving. We saw wild buffalo herds and fields of prairie dogs - of course had to stop to take pictures! Sarge didn't like the buffalo and kept barking at them - they were so close to us tho and totally giving us the stink eye, I kept saying "great, we are gonna cause a buffalo stampede"! Yes, these are things I worry about hahaha! 

we pulled over on the highway to watch the wild buffalo

We were getting in pretty early so decided to stop off and see the Crazy Horse memorial on the way - it was going to cost $22 to enter and we could clearly see it from the road (and honestly, there isn't much to see!) so we snapped some pictures from the van and kept moving. They have been working on the memorial for like 70 years, the idea is like Mt. Rushmore - they are planning to carve Crazy Horse into the side of a mountain - but unlike Mt. Rushmore, it is very slow going. They have his face done and are working on his arm and pointing finger at the moment - Dave took this picture, it's showing the side of his face (at the top middle) with what will be his arm pointing straight out in front of him to the right (the equipment is sitting on his arm:

Anyway, since we didn't go in this was a very quick stop. Headed to the KOA at Mt. Rushmore for a couple nights - this is the biggest campground we have seen so far in our limited campground experience. It was a small city! It has multiple pools, waterslides, a rodeo arena, restaurants and stores galore - check out the campsite map:

We were up in the back by the rodeo arena (thank goodness there wasn't a rodeo then, I'm SO allergic!!) which was nice, away from the majority of the crowds but a long way from everything "entertaining" so didn't go explore much.

The next morning we headed a few minutes away to Mt. Rushmore; there isn't an entrance fee but you do have to pay to park. You can see it from the road (just like with the Crazy Horse memorial) if you don't want to enter but it was cool to go in and see it up close. There are trails you can walk around but it was really hot and Sarge was in the RV (we left the generator on but when it's so blasted hot I still worry - what if something happens and the generator quits? I don't like to leave him for long when the weather is like that) so we just took pictures, went thru the little museum and watched a short film on the making of the memorial (note: I totally didn't want to do this but D did, and it was worth it. If you get there and think you don't want to watch I recommend you do!).

We were only at Mt. Rushmore about an hour, so since it was early in the day Dave wanted to drive up to Wyoming and see Devils Tower (it's featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind). It's a little over 2 hours away and as we were driving we had the thought that we were then going to have to return 2 hours the same way and then the next day drive the same 2 hour route to continue our journey - that's a lot of doubling back so we made the decision to forfeit our 2nd night at Mt. Rushmore and relocate to Devils Tower. Turned out to be the right decision, the campground at Devils Tower was great, our site backed up to the tower and it's a beautiful area. The opposite of Mt. Rushmore, it's a small quaint campground (although they do have a restaurant and store which was nice) and the people are great. We ended up staying 2 nights here we liked it so much!

our view of Devils Tower from our campsite.

we took about an hour hike around the base of the tower

We were here on Dave's birthday so treated ourselves to breakfast at Cattle Kate's at the campground - it's hooked onto the store so I grabbed some caramel corn to give him as a little birthday treat and when I paid and told the register lady what it was for she said "oh I wish I had something nice to wrap it in!" Haha, so cute - I told her "it's just caramel corn and he's sitting right there watching me buy it so it doesn't need special wrapping " LOL.

My new favorite camping dinner is individual grilled pizza. I brought along small pre-baked pizza shells that we topped with sauce, chopped canadian bacon and canned mushrooms, shredded mozzarella. D put them on the gas grill for a few minutes until they were crispy and the cheese melted, doesn't take long. Oh man these were so good we had them again a few nights later!


one year ago today: wine cork keychain