Day 2 - Oct 7 - Devil's Tower National Monument and Badlands National Park - part 1

Whoa!  What a day!!!

The first major stop, and originally, the only one for today, was Devil's Tower National Monument.  If you've never been here, you really should do yourself a favor and make the trip.

I took pretty close to a bazillion photos of this place, but I'll just share enough to give you a good dose and idea of what this place is like.

For one thing, it's a rock climbing Mecca.  Let's zoom in and take a look.

Look for the two climbers, one wearing a yellow shirt, in the photo below.

And now, zoomed in.

It was lunchtime after hiking around the base of Devil's Tower, and that meant it was time for some of the good stuff. :-D

Believe it or not, The Mud Dragons aren't an A-list attraction, so we often to do things on the cheap...not bad, just cheap.  As a matter of fact, at the end of the day, I stopped by a sandwich shop that shall remain nameless (Subway), and it I had it to do again, I'd take a second PB&J over the (Subway) sandwich I had tonight.  The strawberry jam is the BEST!  My wife made it, and if I would let myself, I'd just sit and eat spoonful after spoonful.  

And this was my picnic site.  You can't beat that.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Temps were in the low 50soF, there was only a gentle breeze, and when you sit in the sun, it was just right!  Plus, when I arrived at Devil's Tower, the sky was completely overcast, but once I started my hike, it cleared right up.  You've got to love those kinds of tender mercies!

Oh, and I had one last 44oz soda from my favorite place, Maverik, before leaving Maverik country later in the day.

And on we drove into Scenic South Dakota...where there are lots of great faces... :-D

I arrived in Wall, SD, early enough to have around two hours of sunlight, so I decided to catch some sunset scenes at Badlands National Park (national park #2).  The route I took, however included about 10 miles of gravel road through the Buffalo Gap National Grassland.

If you're not sure what a national grassland might look like...just take a look at this.  Yep, it's about what you'd imagine!  Heh heh.

And then I made it to the park.

Being in Badlands National Park at sunset was AMAZING!

I've been to Yellowstone and Teton National Park several times each, but I've never seen as much wildlife there as I saw here.  Here are a few examples of what I saw this evening.  I saw LOTS of bighorn sheep.  More than I've ever seen before.  I also saw deer and pronghorns!  So now I know "where the deer and the antelope play." 

And South Dakota does sunsets pretty well, too!

And that's the scoop for Day 2.  Let's see where Day 3 takes us.  So far the Mud Dragons are enjoying the outing.  Fans, well, they just don't seem to know who we are, but that's OK.  It'd have to be tiresome to deal with adoring fans - though we wouldn't know about that (HAHA).

Cheers!

Day 1 - Oct 6 - Rexburg to Casper

Day 1 (10/6/2022) - Rexburg, ID to Casper, WY

Any tour worth it's salt won't budge until it has what it needs to go the distance...a full tank of gas and a 44oz soda of choice...from Maverik, of course!  I'm excited about the trip, but it'll be a sad day when I leave the land of Mav, and especially its soda fountains :-D.

I actually thought that today would be a pretty basic drive between the 'Berg and Casper, WY.  But...the Tetons..the west and east slopes really showed up today!

And between them, add the first two states of the trip - Idaho and Wyoming:

 And not only scenery, but the animals also came out to play!

Plus, the first national park.

Today was the first time I've taken the scenic byway between Teton National Park and the far side of the Shoshone National Forest.  My word!  What an absolutely beautiful drive.

Then Wyoming sent me off with an absolutely gorgeous sunset!  What a day!

And I finally pulled into Casper after dark.  Imagine my joy at seeing this place as I pulled into town!

Thanks for checking in!  It was a great day...with many more to come.  

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Cheers!