The road to nowhere!

The long and winding road!

The inevitable RV!

Oh dear, an RV wreck on the highway but everyone was okay

Just a nice red barn

On the road scene

Mail Box

A young lady from Ranchester

How did he get up there?

We didn’t see a nodding donkey in Texas but we did in Wyoming!

Old Glory!

Granite Pass

The end of the Rockies

The Devils Tower

The Devils Tower

Prairie Dog

Two cows, two buffalo and one Texas Longhorn passed by the Devils Tower

Bighorn National Forest

Well, today we left Cody after a quick visit and set off for Rapid City.  The drive was scheduled to be about six hours ………… which of course turned into nine!!

Once again the terrain we have crossed has been so varied. From lovely green mountains with fir trees to complete desolation. We drove across the Rocky Mountains and the road was very winding and at one point in Granite Pass, we were at over 9000 feet. On the way there were signs pointing out how old some of the rocks were, in one particular area they were 2.5 billion years old!! How can they possibly know that?

The drive across the mountains took so long because it was mostly single-lane road and there were lots of RV’s out and about too, so we stopped for lunch and had a traditional American meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn followed of course with apple pie! It was all delicious.

We then decided to take a little detour of about 60 miles round trip to see something of particular interest to a movie fan ….. me of course! I’ll give ten points to the first person to write in the ‘Reply’ section which movie Devil’s Tower was in!! Of course, there is a lot more to learn about this tower than just being in a movie but I just want to say that today we saw ‘the dark side of the moon’!!

People were living around the tower more than 10,000 years ago and it is still of great importance to the Native Americans who come here and leave prayer offerings. They believe the ‘claw-like- marks on the tower were created by a bear chasing two young girls to the top but it is actually weather erosion.

The area has hundreds of Prairie Dogs, they are so cute and so tame. People are told not to feed them but going by the size of one or two, I think a lot of people are not adhering to the rules!!

One thing we have found interesting on our trip are American mail boxes and we’ve seen a few. I expect most of you know that mail in the US is usually delivered to a box at the end of the property and not as in the UK, actually put through the door. Last week I saw a line of about thirty all stood together. This was because all the houses were dotted about a mountainside so the mailman leaves the mail in all the boxes and the people collect it themselves. Also, we’ve noticed the variety of boxes, some plain, some decorated and some like the one above!! How sweet is that?

I think it’s official now that the older we get the stupider we get.  For some reason and I don’t know why, but every time I talk about Yellowstone I keep calling it Yosemite!! I need to go back and check all the posts because I think I may have been writing Yosemite instead of Yellowstone too!! I think I’ve been on holiday too long, I need to go home for a rest!

We arrived here in Rapid City in very poor weather and the temperature had dropped from 85ºF to 55ºF. Fingers crossed the weather is a little warmer tomorrow!!