Day Two: Windy roads, off-roading, buffaloes, America, wild flowers, oil drills
SOUTH DAKOTA
1. Spearfish Canyon
This was beautiful and a great way to start the day. Because on a normal day I usually wake up at 5am, I now naturally wake up at 5:45 on the weekends, and, apparently, on vacation. However, we're in MST, so I woke up at 4:45am. Luckily that's why God invented Netflix on phones. But I was up and showered before 6am. As per usual, hotel breakfasts are wasted on me, so I just decided to get on the road. I hit Spearfish Canyon about 7am and I saw very few other cars. I stopped at Bridal Veil Falls and clearly all roads lead to Iowa because another guy pulled off to take pictures there too and I had him take one of me so I have at least one less selfie in the batch. He asked where I was from in Iowa and I found out that he has family in Winterset.
2. Hanna, SD
Three or four years ago, during a down time at work (I'm SURE it was during my lunch), I looked up all of the towns named Hanna in the US and Canada so that I could eventually visit them all. There was one listed in South Dakota in the Black Hills! According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong, it was still listed as a town, so I thought, let's see! I pulled off the two lane highway into a one lane (at this point paved) road named Hanna Rd (so I felt like I was on the right track) and about three miles in, found the Hanna Campground. A little further in was a couple of houses and a really cool older stone building that I'm guessing had something to do with the logging industry when Hanna was a logging camp town (if it was...). I didn't get a picture of it but I found Hanna! And then I went complete off road on gravel for about a half hour until I hit highway again :) Beautiful houses, lots of trees, and a gravel pit were my scenic views along the way. A couple of times it was big-ass drop off on my side of the gravel road, but I survived.
Also I think I saw a jackrabbit on this drive. I don't know exactly what a jackrabbit looks like, but I saw two gigantic rabbits cross the road.
 |
| Success! |
 |
| Hanna Road |
The guy who took my $10 to enter was way too chatty-dude, just take my money and let me through. He also had super awesome facial hair, but taking a picture would have been way too obvious, so just imagine a bright red beard braided into a tiny chin beard. America.
Mt. Rushmore is pretty amazing, and I took the Presidential Trail. I was a little disappointed that they don't have a North by Northwest exhibit there because that movie is awesome and Cary Grant is amazing climbing around the mountain all sly and stuff. Obligatory picture of me with the presidents.
4. Crazy Horse Mountain
I wasn't going to stop here, but it was on my way to Custer State Park so I decided to check it out. It was actually really cool. I didn't realize (but should have) there is a really cool museum of Native American life. I also got to overhear a young man talk about racism while wearing a Make America Great Again hat, and not ironically, so that's cool. America.
5. Custer State Park
I was told by several people that Custer State Park is their favorite place in the Black Hills and I totally agree! I was driving through and saw a sign for the Wildlife Overlook loop and had no idea where it led, so of course turned in and wow am I glad I did. First of all, the land is BEAUTIFUL. And then I saw buffalo chilling, and then, a few miles later, some wild burros chilling out, and then, we had a traffic jam. Buffalo Dude was just sauntering down the road. He would stop and look at all of the cars like, 'F You, You're on My Time' and then walked off the road, and then walked back on the road and then came to the other side of the road where I was able to get a pretty good picture. He was a big boy.
 |
| This was the second time he decided to go back in the road |
 |
| S'up |
From Custer I took Highway 16 to I-90. I saw this roadside attraction and pulled off, but they didn't have a working card machine and I needed to get cash so I wasn't able to go in, but did snag a couple of pictures. Two of the ladies on staff were in costumes, but one was eating a peanut butter sandwich, so HISTORICALLY INACCURATE! Also, the one eating the sandwich was wearing tennis shoes, so accuracy isn't probably too high on their priority list. Highway 16 in Wyoming was pretty dull. A lot of cattle.
 |
| Another attraction mocking me from beyond a fence |
WYOMING
1. Buffalo
I'm staying in Buffalo tonight and it has a really great downtown. I walked around, lots of antique shops, restaurants, art shops, etc. I didn't gamble at all when I was in Deadwood, but I ate buffalo bratwurst for dinner, so that's the gambling I'm doing on this trip :/ It was really good, so I hope it doesn't hurt me.
 |
| Please don't hurt me |
2. Bighorn National Forest
Almost the entire time I was on I90, I saw mountains in the distance and as I got closer to Buffalo, I realized what they were. After dinner I drove into the forest for quite a ways and it was incredibly beautiful, calming, and windy. A great way to end a great day.
 |
| Bighorn Peak is in the middle, Loaf Mountain on the left and Darton Peak on the right |
Day Three is heading to Yellowstone through Bozeman for Pizza and West Yellowstone to pick up my $100 t-shirt.
No comments:
Post a Comment