Day 4: Rapid City, SD to Cody, WY

And I thought that yesterday was a long day.....we didn't get into Cody, WY and our Super 8 motel until almost midnight. (hense the fact that I'm posting this in the morning instead of last night!)

We checked out Presidents Park in the Black Hills. This is a really neat park if you get a chance to see it. It's really off the beaten path, and it took a lot longer to get to than I thought it would. The park features sculpted busts of all 42 presidents of the United States, standing among the trees, 20 feet tall each. My favorite part was the differences in dress from the beginning to modern day. The early presidents were depicted wearing bow ties and then later regular ties. All the ties had some sort of texture to them, it would have been interesting to see where the inspiration for the ties came from. George W. Bush's tie had a republican elephant pattern on it.

Tom and Lincoln, Jenny and FDR at the President's Park

Next we drove for a bit and visited Devils Tower National Monument. We sat through a ranger presentation on climbing the tower which was pretty interesting in itself. The fastest someone ever climbed the tower was in 18 minutes! We took to the trail around the monument (which turned out to be a lot longer than we thought it was) and got to see some climbers up on the tower.

Devils Tower National Monument

After the Devils Tower we headed toward Cody, WY - slowly but surely. We ran into a rain storm while going over the rocky mountains. It also happened to be at dusk which made for a bad combination - darkness, rain and wildlife. It was kind of funny - after we got through the mountains we stopped at a McDonalds and were pouring over the WY map when two other couples came in also inspecting their maps.

After a stressful final hour and a half of driving (and wildlife crossing the road - deer, raccoon, lots and lots of bunnies and even a few mice) we made it to Cody, WY.

You can view more pictures by clicking here.

We visit Yellowstone today!!! We may not have internet access while we are in Yellowstone so it may be a few days before I post again.