Wow! What a spectacular day. We started the morning driving through the Black Hills National Park. The rock formations were amazing. At Mount Rushmore we gazed upon the four Presidents in the morning sun; very impressive, we went through the visitor center and watched a film about how the were carved by Gutzon Borglum and a large crew of workers. It took 14 years.

Then we drove south to Custer State Park, a huge reserve for prairie wild life. Again beautiful scenery. We saw many deer, mountain sheep, ground hogs and lots of buffalo. We even had to stop the car for one standing in the middle of the road. We drove by a field full of hundreds of prairie dogs hopping in and out of their holes doing little flips. They are very hard to photograph.

Our next stop was Wind Cave National Park. Where we took an hour and a half tour 200 feet underground. This cave is the 4th longest in the world at this time. They have explored and mapped 131 miles of passage ways and geologists think that that is only 10% of the cave. Each year the park rangers are able to map another 6 miles. It was fascinating. This cave is unique because it was once an ocean and there are many fossils. The surface inside the cave is Boxwork, very rare. Google it to find out what that is.

By 3:30 we were making our way into Wyoming. Another change in landscape with more amazing scenery.

The land is very rugged with lots of red bluffs, many hills and canyons. It is ranch country with lots of black cattle dotting the hills. We went through a storm where we could see the lightening all around us. When the rain stopped and the sky cleared we could see the Big Horn Mountains snowcapped in the distance and there was a spectacular sunset in front of us and the moon behind us! Just a perfect day.