Tatonka Road Trip

11:36pm MT on Day 2. Still in the car driving to our hotel – trying to stay away for the next 2-3 hours until we get there. So, how did we get to this point…

Woke up at 7am MT – ate breakfast, got the car packed, dropped of the dog at doggie day care and headed South for our first look at Mount Rushmore. We were a little worried because the cloud and fog cover was like pea soup, but as we got closer, the clouds literally parted and we had spectacular views of the Monument. By the time we got back to the parking lot, the fog was so thick, you could see it drifting in front of your face.

Another hour in the car got us to Wind Cave National Park where we (unfortunately) missed all of the cave tours and decided to go out buffalo hunting instead. The ranger told us that buffalo had been spotted a few miles away earlier in the day, so off we went – everyone’s eyes on the rolling hills in search of Tatonka. A few miles into the journey, Lauren & Sydney let out simultaneous shrieks that they had seen a buffalo butt. Or head. They weren’t sure. We rounded a corner and sure enough, I ginormous big daddy buffalo was sauntering by the side of the road. Like idiots, we pulled over, and I swear this thing was about 5 feet from the car (my window of course). We got amazing pictures in between freaking out about getting the car rammed by a buffalo. They are huge! We continued on the road and spotted another lone male and took a few more pictures, quite content with our buffalo spotting adventure. Just for giggles, we continued on the road and we were rewarded with a herd of HUNDREDS of buffalo – males, females, big small, babies, you name it. We took pictures and video and were truly amazed by them (check website for pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/donnaweinberg/AdventuresOfMonkeyHouse?authkey=Gv1sRgCNjf7I3an8-DNg#).

Finally pulled ourselves away from the buffalo and headed to our caving adventure at the Jewel Cave National Park. We went on a guided tour of the second largest cave in the world – we were about 379 feet below ground – it was pretty cool. I officially know the difference between a stalagtite and a stalagmite and we saw all sorts of crystal and rock formations. Very exciting. Kids seemed to love the cave and the “cool” 49 degrees for the whole tour.

We raced back to Rapid City to pick up Thorkey with about 9 minutes to spare, got back in the car for our six hour drive to Billings. It was such a gorgeous day that we decided to take a little detour and visit Devil’s Tower. Our 30 minute detour turned into about 2 hours as we hiked around the base of the Tower and watched climbers scale the sides – again, very cool. The scenery on the back roads around Devil’s Tower is amazing – rolling hills and red rock formations everywhere. Love those back country roads!

Finally started the journey again just in time to stop for dinner at about 9:30pm and we are now back in the car trying to stay awake. So, pardon the late posting, but there is NO cell reception in most of South Dakota and Wyoming.

Post-script – we pulled into our hotel at 1:30am – I was seeing double by then. But after a short but good night of sleep and the famous La Quinta malted Belgian waffles – we are all ready to roll again!

Notable quotes:
I don’t think we have any – people are still recovering from 18 hours on the road.