Wednesday April 23, 2008

 

 

Our Trip Home

Day 15 – Tuesday

Missoula, MT, to Mount Rushmore, SD

 

 

We were on the road at 5:00 a.m. and approaching the Continental Divide at daylight.

 

 

Sunrise doesn’t get any prettier than in the Rockies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed watching the truck’s outside thermometer go from 22 degrees to a low of 8.8 degrees!  I don’t think I ever watched a thermometer drop so fast.

 

 

Cerwin got lots of calls today, since it was his birthday.

 

 

We traveled on Interstate after Interstate like this today – where the road could be seen going on and on in the distance.

 

 

We saw lots of interesting rock formations and land designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were lots of cattle in the fields and on the hillsides.

 

 

 

 

I think a lot of calves were born since we went this way a week and a half ago.  The fields were full of the little guys.

 

 

There were many interesting farms and ranches scattered across the countryside.

 

 

I often tried to imagine who may have lived in some of these old, abandoned buildings.

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed seeing lots of antelope as we traveled through eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota.

 

 

 

 

We only saw a few mule deer during this trip, and I was not able to photograph the ones we did see, but that changed when we stopped at Mount Rushmore late today.

 

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We had decided ahead of time that we would take a personal break by visiting Mount Rushmore, which I had never seen, and Cerwin hadn’t seen since 1961.

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We saw several mule deer along the road as we ascended the hill to see the presidents.

 

 

An awesome site!

 

 

There were more mule deer along the road as we traveled down the hill.

 

 

 

 

After getting a motel room and supper, a herd of mule deer were feeding in the yard across the road.

 

 

There are more mule deer than people in the town below Mount Rushmore, as the season only opens next week.  It was nice to be here on a beautiful evening in the off season.  It is about sixty degrees this evening.

 

Most restaurants and motels are closed, but we only needed one meal and one motel room.  We are just a short distance from the presidents, in Keystone, SD.  Most of the people in town are here in preparation for the opening of the season next week.

 

 

Cerwin took time to clean the truck wheels – just outside our motel room.