Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Day 3....a little late

Rapid City, SD to Salt Lake City, UT

That is a very long drive.  I was too tired to update when we finally made it to our hotel last night so I'm catching up today.

Although I have been assured that there are some very beautiful parts of Wyoming, the part we went through was mostly rocks and tumbleweeds.  Also, very much uninhabited-I would suspect for those very reasons.  It was the most desolate place I have ever been.  Certainly not a place you would want to break down!  Plus, to make it just that much more miserable there was a high wind advisory in effect.  At times it would actually be darker because of all the dust blowing in the air.  If that happens often you could add it to the list of why people don't live there!

But we did take one detour to do something cool.  We stopped at Devil's Tower national monument.  In addition to being a national monument it is apparently also famous for being in the movie Close Encounter of the Third Kind, which I have not seen.

National Parks don't allow pets on trails so here is Legend in the parking area before we had to put her back in the car to take a short hike.

 The tower is much larger than it looks in the pictures.  It's actually quite impressive.

On the way up to the tower there is a prairie dog town.  The little guys were literally popping up everywhere.  Despite being carriers of plague, they were pretty cute.  



A windshield pic on the way to Utah

3 comments:

Sarah said...

I've been enjoying following along on your trip. I took basically the same trip with my grandma and grandpa the summer we moved back from Oregon. We saw Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, etc. and it's fun to think of memories from that trip.

Karissa said...

That is crazy that you have never seen "Close Encounters!" My dad loved that movie, so I've probably seen it a hundred times. I can't see Devil's Tower without thinking of mashed potatos. lol Now that you've been there, you'll have to check out the movie some time.

I love that you are making an adventure out of this road trip. I always fail to take in the scenery around me and just want to get where I'm going as fast as possible. I hate driving....

Are you fortunate enough to have a (non-canine) travel partner with you? That always helps.

Nicki said...

I also hate driving! My husband is making the trip with Legend and I. No way I would have attempted this on my own. We decided rather than rush out just to trial and rush back (which would have taken at least a week anyway) that we would take our time and do more sight-seeing/vacation stuff.