South Dakota and Mt Rushmore

Since there was nothing in Wyoming, we continued to South Dakota.
Our GPS led us astray because we had it on a wrong setting, and took us on a unpaved road.  Well, on our way to turn around from this unpaved road, we saw turkeys.  To Jason, that made the wrong turn worthwhile... he's a nut.
Then we saw this deer, and a couple other too.  That REALLY made the wrong turn worthwhile... sheesh.
Finally we made it to the small town on Keystone, SD.  The only reason it exists is because of Mt Rushmore.
Once again, we gave the National Park Service some of our money.

I've always thought this row of flags was pretty neat.
It was the first time Jason had seen Mt Rushmore (my second time), so we went to the little museum they have about building it too.  Quite the accomplishment.
And to prove that I was there too, we got someone to take a picture of us. :)  Not the best picture in the world, but oh well.  Haha...

Sorry for the many posts, but I'm trying to keep the posts smaller so everyone with slower connections can upload and see them all!

Little Bighorn, Part 2 and Wyoming

After several days of trying to upload these pictures, they finally decided to upload today.

Here is Custer's stone.  It was the only one with flags around it, all the other ones were just white stones in the middle of a grassy field (like the one in the top left corner of the picture).
Here is Jason at the Indian memorial there.  It's one big circle with all the different tribes that were involved.  There are scattered quotes from some of them too.
In the visitor center there, they had weapons, uniforms, and other things from the battle site.  I thought this one was funny.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Crow scouts Custer had told him it wasn't a good idea:
Here are some medals some of the soldiers got.  I thought it was interesting to see some really OLD medals.
Like I said before, The Battle at Little Bighorn was a good history lesson for both of us.  We left right before the park closed, and we were back on the road again.

Wyoming welcomed us next... that's the REAL welcome to Wyoming sign, unlike the other ones we had seen.
We watched the sun set as we were driving, and happened to find a nice overlook to get a picture.  That's about all  Wyoming is good for.
We decided to take a little bit of a detour to drive to Devil's Tower.  This sign shows the Indian legends of how the tower came about.

We decided not to give this park our money.  We wanted to get on the road again and actually get somewhere, so we stopped at the gate and took pictures.

Half of Little Bighorn...

After Yellowstone, we stopped at Little Bighorn Battlefield.
The National Park Services LOVED us this trip because we went to so many of them and paid money for each one... haha.  Here is a look at Custer's Last Stand hill.  He was pretty much right where that big monument is up there, and all those white specs are stones of people who died.
Here is a close up of what some of those stones say.  Most of them say "US Soldier" instead of an actual name.
This picture is from the top of the hill overlooking where the Indian encampment was.  It pretty much covered that entire valley, where all the trees are now, and also some beyond it.
Another view of the Indian encampment land.  All those fields were filled with Indians, and yet Custer still thought his 600 men would be fine... dumb.  The hills in front here were the ones the cavalry retreated UP after trying to conquer the Indians below... poor horses sure ran directly uphill!
And for some reason, my computer/the internet has decided not to let me upload the other half of the pictures from Little Bighorn, so you'll just have to wait to see Custer's stone and a few other things.  It was a good history lesson though, and Jason and I realized how DUMB Custer really was to completely ignore what his Indian scouts had told him!