South Dakota Vacation Day 3

Day three of our vacation started out with an early morning drive out to Devil's Tower.


It was a beautiful day!

It took us about an hour and a half to drive there from our campsite at Lead/Deadwood. I was worried about the drive but it went really smoothly since Michael snoozed the entire time!

We did the two mile hike around the base of Devil's Tower. It was a beautiful morning! Wait, did I say that already?

We alternated carrying Michael on our back and in our arms. He did pretty well in the carrier, but got tired after a while. Everyone LOVED saying hi to him when he was on my back, especially little kids. People would ask when they were getting a ride and how much Michael looked like he was living the life! So funny!


There was a big prairie dog village at the base of the tower and they were so fun to watch! Most people stayed on the side of the road and watched, but I ventured out to get a close shot. This little guy was really chirping at me!

Have you ever seen the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

We watched it the night before so we would be ready to see the tower in all of it's glory. Such a cheesy movie, but it was nice to set the tone for the trip.





Lots of people were climbing on the rocks and the tower and it looked like lots of fun!

If you didn't have a permit you could only climb on the rocks which were at the base, which was fine with us!

After the hike, we had a nice picnic at one of the areas in the park. It was relaxing to chill around for a bit. Michael was excited to be out of his carseat and carrier and was having lots of fun playing in the dirt.

On the way back to the black hills, we drove through the scenic Spearfish Canyon and stopped at this little stream to hike around a bit. You could put your feet in but it was FREEZING!

Michael was not a fan; he would scrunch his feet up to his body when Scott tried to dip them in.

The other movie we wanted to watch before our trip was Dances with Wolves; one of my favorites. However, we didn't get a chance to see it BUT we did drive by one of the filming sites for the movie.

Here it is:

Amazing, right?

I hope you are catching my sarcasim, because I was not impressed. I couldn't even remember a part in the movie that looked like this place. Scott told me it was when they were in their winter camp. Who knows?

After we got back to Deadwood we had a nice dinner in the Salon no. 10 and walked around a bit downtown. It was a great dinner and we slept well that night after our busy day!