A few days camping in the Black Hills + Devil's Tower National Monument
Our first stop on the way to the black hills area was Devils Tower National Monument. After lunch at R-Deli in Hulett for delicious sandwiches we dropped the camper at Devil Towers View Campground (electric hookups only but close to the park and has a view of the monument) and headed on in to the park. We only had one day and night for Devils Tower and it was plenty of time.
We took the paved hike around the base of the mountain to see it from all sides before resting on a bench for a while to help the kids with their junior ranger books. Gray was mesmerized watching the rock climbers so high on the rock that seemed to just rise from nowhere. He has gotten into rock climbing and it was fun to watch his imagination come alive with a dream of what could be. If he works hard enough maybe he’ll be the one climbing that mountain one day while another little boys look up in wonder and discovers a new world at his reach. We drove the few roads outside of the monument area and headed back to the camper for supper. Evan and Gray went back for some star shots that night and got more great stuff at sunrise before we continued on.
As we drove towards the black hills on Wednesday I wasn’t feeling so hot so a stop for coffee on the road was a must (cures everything right?). I found a little shop in Baker Wyoming called Lawlers. It was like a Hallmark and coffee shop all in one. The coffee wasn’t great but the gifts were cute. The bathroom situation felt a bit out of a horror film though so I won’t go into detail about that. You can imagine.
On Thursday we were excited. We drove a short distance entering South Dakota and officially arrived in the black hills where we had several parks planned for the day. We dropped the camper in the Cabbalas parking lot in Rapid City so we didn’t have to tow the it all day and headed towards Mount Rushmore. We got there pretty early and had no problem with parking. The kids kept saying “Whoah! look at the faces” to which we reminded them on repeat that “the faces” have a name. There is construction at Rushmore right now so we couldn’t do much other than go to the gift shop but luckily “the faces” aren’t small so you still get a decent view. We took the trail down to the artists studio to see a few more exhibits coinciding with Rushmore and that pretty much completed the journey there.
Quick break for a funny story: I was wearing a hat and my favorite sunglasses ($5 Walmart y’all) and, of course, stopped to use the restroom while at the park. It’s was super sunny outside and pretty dark inside so I pushed the sunglasses on top of my hat as I waited for a stall. Once inside I tilted my head down… Well, maybe I jerked my head down in actuality because my glasses flew off under the divider and into the stall next to me. I apologized and asked for the glasses to which I was met with much grunting and groaning. Neighbor lady was going #2 and this was no time for interruptions. Oops! I awkwardly waited outside the stall for her to finish (I mean, we’ve all been there) to hear the glasses go crunch under her feet when she stood up. So there goes those glasses. RIP my sunnies. Anyway...
Though it wasn’t a long stop, we were hungry for some lunch by the time we left Mount Rushmore and let me tell you, there is one home-owned business that knows what’s up. Grapes and Vines is a cute little place just beyond the park that has Coffee, Wine, Ice cream and Carbs (basically single scoops of all life’s luxuries) and outside it has a nice playground, large play areas and covered relaxing seating for adults (basically a parents paradise for a relaxing break while the kids play). Genius I tell you. We grabbed subway from across the street, coffee from Grapes and Vines and ate and took a little break to let the kids play. Ahhhh so nice. Someone open one of these close to my house ASAP please.
Then we were back at it! Wind Cave National Park is just a skip down the road as is Jewel Cave National Monument. I mean who doesn’t love a good time in a cave? We checked both places online to see which we should adventure in and found out that BOTH parks have their cave tours closed due to elevator issues. How does that even happen? So we chose to head in to Wind Cave since it is a full National Park and do the work for another ranger badge. It was a short stop since it is mostly cave that we couldn’t see but a nice stop nonetheless.
Wind Cave boarders Custer State Park so it was naturally our next stop. Custer is known for its rock formations and tiny driving tunnels along Needles Highway. Evan hopped in the passengers seat to take photos so I got to enjoy the labors of most of the fun windy roads between the rocks. It would be the perfect place to go back to on a motorcycle. Zoom zoom. One of the tunnels seemed impossible to pass in our big ‘Ol vehicle at first glance and it was obvious why there are no tow vehicles allowed in the road. The rock structures stuck up like fingers coming up the ground. It was pretty cool.
Once off the Needles Highway we headed back towards Rapid City for supper and to collect our shiny home. We kept hearing about a local chain called Pizza Ranch. We don’t do a lot of buffet’s but no one wanted to cook and the kid price was hard to beat (ages 2 and under are free and then it’s $0.75 for each year of a kids life after that. Score). So in we went. The specialties at Pizza Ranch are pizza and fried chicken. We learned several things while there: the fried chicken is amazing, the place is super clean and efficient and Phoenix can put down a buffet like nobody’s business. The amount of plates cleared from our table was shameful. After rounds of ice cream and dessert pizza we waddled on out and went on over to Cabbalas for the camper so we could head towards the Badlands.
The long day made for a late night getting in but it had been a good day and we had no rush the next morning. As we drove into the park it was so dark and the sky was amazingly bright with stars so Evan was able to get some astro shots from the side of the road. Icing on his cake.