As you likely gathered from John's pictures posted on July 6, we tackled the glorious Devil's Tower. But before that, we changed up the schedule and went out for breakfast so we'd be hungry for dinner in someplace (anyplace!) other than Newcastle. You might suspect that we are a little tired of Pizza Barn. Anyway breakfast was super good from the West End Bar and Grill.
We headed on toward Sundance and eventually The Devil's Tower came into sight. I think I need a thesaurus because I'm about to overuse the words beautiful, majestic and awesome. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before! We stopped at a scenic pulloff area for some pictures (where I quickly replied to a text from my boss - I'm very dedicated to my work, you know), stopped at the gift shop for some goodies and then headed into the park.
The first stop inside was a prarie dog field (prarie?) where we could see more of those little cuties and get more white of The Tower from a closer, different perspective. We rode on through the park and stopped at the visitor center, where I got my photo taken with two characters that looked like Teddy Roosevelt. John called them the Teds. Dan, John and I took the mile and a half hike around the The Tower to check it all out. Luckily it was about 70 degrees and slightly overcast, with a slight breeze. Perfect conditions for a hike. It was interesting to see how different The Tower looked as you worked your way around.
In the parking lot before we left the visitor center area we met a local woman and got to talking about the area. We had a hankering for Mexican food and she recommended a place about 30 miles out and kind of on the way home in Spearfish, SD - perfect distance to get there around dinnertime.
We were delights to see that the restaurant, Guadalajara, had a nice, large billboard before the exit on the road. But do you think we could find the place when we turned off the highway? We drove through the entire town before stopping to ask. Turns out it was all the way back at the frontage road that paralleled the highway! I think they should invest in one more sign - we never woulda found that place on our own. But boy, the food was great and it was totally worth it.
We took highway 85 home and it offered a delightful ride with lots of interesting things to see - even a nice stream that ran along with us - enough gentle curves and turns to keep things interesting and nice smooth roads. Another successful day, and another excellent adventure!
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