Day 10 - South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming (again)

On this 10th day of vacation we woke up to glorious rain! It felt like we had dodged fires all the way except in Yellowstone so it was nice to see some precipitation. We packed up from the Super 8 and drove off into the mist. First stop was the Roughluck falls. Monica had lots of memories of this place so we charged off following her memories until we reached a dead-end. Backtracking we found the signs pointing the way which actually took us where we wanted to go. The water fall was beautiful - sort of shaped like a tuning fork. A little ways further downstream we were able to see brown trout laying in wait for tasty insects and the like. After that we headed on through Spearfish canyon on our way to Rapid City. It was a lovely drive through the forested region. The forests are kept thinned out there making it all look more park-like than wild. We saw a couple of deer and plenty of birds (but no seagulls!). Where are the rabbits? On this 10th day of communing with nature I have yet to see a single bunny. Weird. After a brief stop in Rapid City we headed to Mount Rushmore. We took the trail down to the sculptors studio which had like a million steps and then went through the exhibits there. Ice cream and shopping was our reward for surviving all the steps. From Mount Rushmore we took the short hop over to the Crazy Horse monument. Everything there seemed a bit pricey but I thought it was worth the trip. It is surpising that it is taking so much longer to sculpt than Mount Rushmore did - based on the progress to date. The "welcome center" is much more than a gift shop - it is full of Native American exhibits as well as the usual assortment of tee shirts and key chains. After Crazy horse, we still had a long way to drive to get to Casper so we headed South through the prairie. We went through the Olaland grasslands - huge expanses of rolling hills with grass that appear to go on forever. I had to close my eyes to imagine them covered with Bison (yes it was okay to close my eyes - monica was driving). We saw small family groups of antelope but not much else. We entered Nebraska while we were driving through the grasslands. Monica claimed the South Dakota grasslands were more fertile than the Nebraska grasslands but it all looked the same to me. After a while the prairie stared to be more broken up with more trees and small gorges. Apparently Elk live there as well as deer and the rest. As we headed back into Wyoming we saw train after train after train hauling coal - monica tried to count the cars and claims there were 138 coal cars in one train. After traveling through a lot of wind I was finally rewarded with seeing some wind turbines - since no one seems to live out on these plains and the wind continues to blow - seems like a good thing. We arrived Casper safe and sound and were able to join Monica's family for dinner before retiring.