The Wandering Hart

On day 6 of the road trip we sadly said goodbye to Yellowstone National Park and kicked off another long drive to Devil’s Tower KOA with no real stops other than to charge the car along the way.

The KOA at Devil’s Tower is awesome – highly recommend. We had a beautiful, unobstructed view of Devil’s Tower from our campsite and the facilities (including free showers!) were nice and clean. Plus they show Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which was filmed there and in the area) every evening outside with the tower in the background.

In the morning we grabbed a hot breakfast at the KOA and then went in the official National Monument site. Fun fact: Devil’s Tower was the first national monument designated in the US. The site has a couple loop options around the tower. We took the short paved path close around the tower which was very easy and offered some great views (including views of a handful of people climbing Devil’s Tower). Pro-tip: there’s also a pull-off on the road called “Prairie Dog Town” just before the Tower that has a ton of adorable prairie dogs – we did this on the way in and got to sit and watch the prairie dogs for a while.

After Devil’s Tower we started making our way to Mt. Rushmore with some planned kitschy stops along the way. I was most excited for Dinosaur Park! This is a small display of dinosaur statues in Rapid City but most of the statues are pretty goofy looking. I’m fairly certain this inspired part of the movie Mitchell’s v the Machines (which is great – if you haven’t seen it go watch it on Netflix!) which is why I was so thrilled. We just had a great time there taking silly pictures with the various statues for a bit.

We had also wanted to stop at Cosmos Mystery Area, which is a “gravitational anomaly” (I’m pretty sure it’s basically a fun house) but unfortunately it was a long wait to go in soooo it was straight onto Mt. Rushmore next!

To be honest, I had low expectations for Mt. Rushmore but the information provided about the sculpting process was actually very cool. And obviously the memorial itself is impressive. I definitely recommend going into the little museum by the amphitheater, which is where you can learn what the planning and ultimate carving process was.

After Rushmore we went to Crazy Horse which I was a little disappointed by. Obviously it is a work in progress but it’s $15 per person which felt steep and it’s an additional $4 per person to ride a bus close enough to see the carving better. For comparison Mt. Rushmore is $10 per car. I did however enjoy their overview of the buffalo near-extinction and rescue process, and the display on the biography of Crazy Horse. I’m sure it’ll be cool to see the carving continue to develop in future years, but this wasn’t my favorite.

From there we set up camp at Wind Caves National Park for the night. They have an excellent campground which was very easy to book but if you plan to travel there be sure to make reservations for both campsite and cave tours! It seemed like there were some spaces still open but in my opinion it’s worth avoiding the risk.

Travel Log posts are my version of a travel diary so I can record what my latest adventures were and anyone interested can follow along live.