Day 7: In a Big Country

In a Big Country.

Devil's Tower

Our last day in South Dakota. We started the day spending as much time in the bathroom as we could, everyone showering and getting ready to begin the next leg squeaky clean. We packed up, purchased a few more Badlands souvenirs, we headed on our way.

In the Black Hills there is one destination that calls people like no other. The parking lot for this place is filled with license plates from all over the country. Mt. Rushmore? The Needles? No, I'm talking about Reptile Gardens, home of Maniac the enormous crocodile. Andrew was chomping at the bit to see this place, we needed to do laundry, so we figured we'd brave the attraction for some time to wash.

Reptile Gardens

Honestly, it was pretty good. Really good even. I'm not sure if it was because I had the lowest possible expectations or if it was just really that good, but we had a blast. We went to three performances: bird, alligator, and snake. They were fantastic. Corny jokes that were funny because they were delivered with a South Dakota sheepishness that made the jokes endearing. There was an indoor jungle that was impressive, with birds and lizards running around rare plants and fossils. If you are into snakes, it's the place to go, I've never seen so many. Fantastic alligators and crocs, plus giant tortoises that you could pet. It was well worth the trip.

At Homesteak Mine.  

We were now clean and reptiled out, ready to begin the next leg of our adventure, Wyoming, with a quick detour to Deadwood. Imagine every cheesy tourist destination in America and make it Western with gambling and you have Deadwood. It was worth a drive by, but we weren't sad that it wasn't more than that. The next town over, Lead (as in going in front, not as in the stuff in a pencil) we stopped at a gold mine, Homesteak Mine. It was pretty amazing. Instead of going underground, they just dug out the mountain, so you looked down this giant terraced hillside. They mined gold from this mine from the 1800's to 2001. Pretty amazing, plus they had the mining locomotives and tools for the kids to climb on which was pretty cool, and, even better they were across the street from a Subway and a pizza place. South Dakota is not known for their pizza for good reason, but the people there were really nice and it happened to be next to a place where we could buy something for Owen to eat, perfect!

Devil's Tower was our next stop. We got there just as the sunset and hiked the base. It's an astonishing volcanic formation rising to enormous height. The amazing part of our trip is how things are so intertwined from one place to another. When we were in the Badlands, the rangers told a Native American story about a race between the buffalo and four legged creatures with man and the other two legged creatures (really just birds, which was a key creature to have on your team, it turns out). The race was from Devils Tower to the Badlands. Two leggeds won, if you are curious, thanks to the magpie on the buffalos back who flew ahead. We had decided to drive through the night from Devils Tower to Yellowstone, but the ride was supposed to be amazing so we planned to drive most of the way and leave the last hour and a half for our viewing pleasure the next day.