Eastward Bound

It was time to make another visit home, so we left the Tetons and headed east. Rather than flying home like in June, we decided to drive to South Dakota, leave the Ciaowagen there for some repairs, and then drive the rest of the way to Virginia in the Fittata.

We didn't want to drive straight through, so we took the opportunity to make short visits to a few places along the way.

Our first stop was the town of Thermopolis in the middle of Wyoming. Thermopolis is most famous for its hot springs, the largest outdoor hot spring in the world (at least that's what written on the hill overlooking the springs - see the picture below). We spent the evening soaking at a resort in the state park there.

We spent the next morning at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis. It's not imposing at all from the outside (they're in temporary quarters), but they have an amazing fossil collection inside that includes not only dinosaurs but dates back to the earliest life on earth. The private collection belongs to a German, and includes a wonderful archaeopteryx fossil (one of the few in the world), some amazing plant fossils and a collection of dinosaur eggs, including newly hatched ones in nests.

We continued east through Wyoming and arrived at Devils Tower National Monument. Devils Tower was the very first national monument, designated by Theodore Roosevelt following the passage of the Antiquities Act in the early 1900s. It's a giant plug of volcanic basalt that formed underground and then was gradually exposed as the area around it eroded. It's probably most famous from the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" where it figured as the site where the aliens landed. We didn't see any aliens while we were there, but we did see some rock climbers as we hiked around the base of the tower. We stayed in the local KOA with a great view of the rock, and where they show "Close Encounters" every evening in a small outdoor theater.

Continuing east, we passed through the Black Hills area of South Dakota, stopping by Mount Rushmore for lunch and a quick visit with the Presidents. They were renovating the main viewing area, so we could not get up close and personal.

We spent a day exploring Badlands National Park just east of the Black Hills. The park is famous for its eroding bluffs and cliffs (they lose about a foot per century), but it has large expansive prairies as well.

Badlands is also a haven for wildlife, including bison, bighorn sheep, and a humongous prairie dog town.

We found one prairie dog that had done a particularly good job of fattening himself up for the winter.

Finally, we continued to the eastern side of South Dakota and the city of Sioux Falls, where we visited a friend of Doug's and also took in the falls which sit right in the heart of town. There had been teeming rains in the past few days, so the flow was pretty impressive.

Although they had not been enough to halt our travels, we had experienced a couple of RV issues during September (including a stuck slide-out and a plumbing leak). RV dealers tend to be very busy this time of year (people are getting their RVs "winterized" for storage), but we were lucky to find a well-regarded dealer in Sioux Falls who could repair our issues. We left the Ciaowagen with them, and then drove the Fittata 1,200 miles back to Virginia in a day-and-a-half.

After 2-3 weeks at home visiting our kids, going to doctor appointments, and attending Doug's 50th (Yikes!) high school reunion, we will drive back to South Dakota, pick up our rig, and continue our travels until the holidays. More about that in our next blog post!