Yellowstone, Medora, Badlands, Mt Rushmore May, 2018: Day Eight

Another beautiful day (although we did run through some storms late in the afternoon). Rapid City is booming! On the way up to Mt Rushmore, we see more new schools, hospitals, hotels, apartments and subdivisions. We'll have to research to find out the reason.

Our first stop today is the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, about an hour from Rapid City. Its a long climb up into the beautiful Black Hills to an elevation of about 5000 feet. The sky is bright blue and the sun is warm on our backs. We intentionally came here in the morning so the sun would be behind us. Brilliant move! The photo ops were great!

We thought about visiting the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is not from here, but we couldn't afford the 2 hrs it would take. Besides, we thought it was probably an Indian tourist complex.

We drove north the length of the Black Hills National Forest on Rt 185/85. Beautiful country of lodgepole pines. We checked out three interesting tourist towns along the way - Keystone, Hill City and Deadwood, before returning to I-90 at Spearfish. In Hill City, we impulsively purchased a carved bear for our back yard! I made the carver a deal he couldn't refuse!

After a 300 mile day, we arrived at our Quality Inn at Sheridan, WY. We enjoyed a sensational dinner at the Wyoming Cattle & Creek Co, as recommended by the hotel clerk.

Tomorrow should prove an adventure. The plan is to go due west from Sheridan to Cody and through Yellowstone and on to Rexburg.