The Great Western Road Trip 2018: Two Days to Cross Wyoming

We woke up on Sunday morning and started the long drive to Buffalo, Wyoming, where we would spend the night. We covered the last bit of Yellowstone we had not driven (Old Faithful to the East Entrance), stopping briefly at Fishing Village and a few pretty turn-outs:

Keppler Cascades

More wildflowers, I could not resist them

We spotted a coyote at Storm Point

 

The halfway point of the drive was Cody, Wyoming (the town founded by Buffalo Bill), and where we planned to make our major stop for the day. We had lunch at a lovely farm to table restaurant called Local, where we flipped through promotional materials we picked up at the visitor center and chose Old Trail Town as our activity for the day:

Some of the "artifacts" - this was in the school room

The "town" was pretty desolate

After leaving Cody, we made one more stop at a pretty pull-out in the mountains:

Before arriving in Buffalo, where there is really nothing to do or see:

But we got up the next morning for a second day of driving across Wyoming and found lots of cool things to stop at (more than we could fit in, sadly). Although we had originally decided not to do so, we made a last minute decision to detour to Devil's Tower:

On the boulders at the base of Devil's Tower

There is an entire prairie dog town near the entrance to the monument

Shortly after Devil's Tower, we crossed into South Dakota. Our plan was to drive through the Black Hills area to Badlands and then backtrack to the Black Hills as our last stop on the trip:

Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills - this was a scenic drive recommended by a friend

Bridal Veil Falls

Next stop, Deadwood. The downtown strip was super-touristy:

But once we made out way off the main strip, we really enjoyed the town. We took a mine tour:

At the end of the tour, they gave us each a share certificate in the mine's gold

And then headed to Boot Hill, where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried:

View of the town from the cemetary

As an added bonus, there were big horn sheep wandering all over the cemetary

When we finally hit the road again, it was with a goal of making it to Badlands by sunset. The first thing we saw was this onion truck, which we all got a kick out of (never seen one before):

 

And then we started spotting the signs for Wall Drug:

So, of course we had to stop:

I'd been talking about seeing jackalopes the whole trip, and now here was my proof. Most of the jackalopes we saw in the wild were immature and had not yet grown their horns

It's only another 15 miles from Wall to Badlands, and we made it to the park just at sunset -- picture of that tomorrow.