Rawlins, Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota

We found a couple real cool things on the road today. Most of our travels were on secondary roads so we got to see sights that you miss on the Interstates. we started with an excellent breakfast at the Hampton Inn in Rawlins, Wyoming. This was the best motel on our trip...maybe the best we've ever had on any trip...so we were all sad to say goodbye. We started driving at 9:30AM and our first stop was at Independence Rock a couple hours north of Rawlins. We had never heard of this place before but it was real cool. We did a fair bit of hiking to climb to the top and check out all the names that were carved into the rock. Justin carved our names, we took a bunch of pictures and we were on our way. From there we started east until we reached Ayers Bridge, a natural stone archway carved by a river. We had packed a lunch in the morning and we stopped at the bridge to eat. Very cool. Lots of kids tubing on the river. Back on the road we hit some more rain. Not as bad as yesterday, but the van got a bit of a bath. Speaking of the van...I got a little too close to a highway cone and broke the side mirror. Darn. I'll have it fixed in Rapid City tomorrow morning before we leave town. We stopped at the South Dakota border for a photo and before too long we were at Mount Rushmore. Everyone enjoyed our visit, even Joshua. We took a ton of pictures, had dinner and did some more hiking. The drive from Mount Rushmore to our motel in Rapid City was short. We checked in to the Comfort Inn and headed for the pool. Cool and crowded. We swam for 45 minutes or so and headed back to the room for bed. Not a whole lot more to see on our vacation...just the highway taking us home.

License Plates: Connecticut, North Dakota, South Carolina, Washington D.C., Saskatchewan Canada