Day 3

Finally, something to see!! We started the day with rain. It stormed during the night, so much so that Evelyn was afraid a tornado may come through. I heard it thunder, but for the most part, slept through it. Anyway, it rained while we loaded the van and for the first hour of travel time... The good thing is that it washed the bugs off the van from last night.

We started out at the badlands, they were gorgeous, but it was cold and windy when we first got out. No one was prepared, so we all nearly froze. After walking around and taking pictures, we drove through the park. We looked for deer and antelope, but didn't see any in the badlands, however the scenery was great. After we left the park, we drove up on a group of antelope grazing in a field. After that, we saw antelope all day.

Sarah had to get a free glass of water from Wall Drug, so we stopped, we all got homemade ice cream which was GREAT.

We headed on to Mount Rushmore and was greeted with a warm sunny day; again, we weren't prepared. We scrambled to get sunscreen and hats. We decided to take a walk on a ranger led tour, about 10 minutes in it started hailing on us... It HURT!!! People were yelling and screaming, but we made it back to the gift shop. We did manage to get some pictures before the bad weather set in.

We decided to hit Crazy Horse next, but were disappointed when the cost was $27, just to get in... Mt. Rushmore was only $10... But wait... Crazy Horse is NOT EVEN FINISHED. In fact, since the last time I was there nearly 15 years ago, I couldn't see ANY changes. I was very disappointed.

Finally, we were off to Cody. We stopped at a small rest area and Sarah and Lily played on a playground, I got pictures and they had a blast. The road from Buffalo to Cody is absolutely spectacular. Sarah got to see snow on the mountains as we came through the 9666 ft. mountain pass. It was definitely the highlight of the day. It was our first taste of Yellowstone country.

We settled in for the night in Cody, WY. There were very few rooms left in the town and we feel lucky to have gotten a suite for the night.

As always, I'll write again tomorrow.

Jeremy