After a wonderful break from the dirt by sleeping in the town of Red Lodge at a hotel, we were refreshed and ready to hit the road again and start to get into more flat ground. We had to get towards the east side of Wyoming and eventually into South Dakoda for the night. After an early rise in the morning we grabbed our coffee and refilled for gas. Our goal was to see various sites along the route, the first being the bighorn National Recreation area. This area is close to the Bighorn National forest which Have explained about in other BLOGS HERE, however this is a completely different area to recreation.
The area itself is a massive canyon which almost has a Utah feel to it, as opposed to Wyoming. We decided to see the famous overlooks and explore the main road into the area. This is about a 30 mile paved road into and along the canyon walls. There are many overlooks and multiple boat launch ramps. Unfortunately we didn’t have a boat to be on! Nonetheless, we had a good time seeing the overlooks and exploring the area. There were also many horses around the area which were obviously wild. This was a great respite from the mountains.
As we left the area it was time for lunch, and thus we stopped at Mcdonalds along the way for time efficiency. Our next stop for the day was a far way from the bighorn rec area, but we did do a scenic drive through the bighorn national forest to which I found astonishing and should be (in my opinion) a national park. We stopped at a local store in the forest for snacks along the way, and had I known about the beauties and hikes of this forest I would have stayed to hike.
After we left the store we still had three hours of deriving to get to our final natural destination for the days end which was Devils Tower National park. This is one of the smallest parks in the country but one of the most unique, as it features a rocky spire coming out the ground in the relatively flat northern Dakodas. It is a wild site to see it. There are rumors about this formation actually being an old petrified tree that would essentially be the size equivalent of what one would have seen in Avatar. One of the fun things to do in this park is to hike the whole park in under an hour and being around thousands of Prairie Dogs. The prairie dogs are extra nice and love to come up to people. It is advised not to feed them however but they are great for picture taking and appreciating this landscape.
This was bringing us close to the end of the day and we still had to find a campsite and get further east. We decided to stop in a town called Deadwood, and this was by complete luck we stumbled into the world famous Sturgis rally! I completely forgot this was going on during this time of year, and we had to pay $40 to get a campsite due to busy crowds there. We had some amazing, interesting characters around us once we found a privately owned campsite, which did offer a shower and food with our campsite fee. This allowed us to get comfortable and explore this famous town. I had never heard of this town before today, and I was so happy to get there and explore the bars and restaurants at nighttime during these crazy Sturgis times. The town was known for its patron Wild Bill Hicock who was killed during a poker match by showing aces and 8s. Which is formally called the dead mans hand now! We explored bars that had the bullet holes in them still from the 1800s and where many historic figures walked. This was overall a great night and a great experience since it was a surprise and unplanned. It was now time for rest and sleep for another big day tomorrow!
EXPENSES
14.46 gas
6.51 coffee
11 mcdonalds
16.90 gas
3.88 water and cheetos
46.52 groceries and mattress
42.50 camping fee
11 beer
10 beer
Total – 162.77