We kind of threw this day together at the last moment. We took another one of the scenic highways around the National Forest. It was nice and slow. We then stopped in a small city on the edge of the park for breakfast the Rt. 16 Diner. Which was kind of had a sixties atmosphere. We then returned to the Reptile Gardens for one last time to see what we missed the first time. The large Galapagos Tortoises were outside today and it looked as if they had a little more energy than the first time we saw them. One of the employees was letting people get over the fence to touch them, so we just had to join in. Both Devin and I got to rub the neck of the giant which he obviously enjoyed. He stood up and stretched out his neck in a demonstration of pleasure. We zipped quickly around and saw what we missed on Friday, the Komodo dragon, and the snake floor. Then we were off to Devil’s Tower, across the border into Wyoming. We drove a lot today cause everything we wanted to see was so far apart. Anyway the tower was fantastic. We walked a trail encircling the base that was about a mile and a half. On the way around we saw the very same Prairie Rattler that we saw at the reptile gardens two days before. Only this time it was in the WILD!!! I wanted to cuddle with it but the ranger counseled me against it. We snapped a few pictures oohed and ahhed and were out of the park around 2pm. We set off for our next destination Spearfish. I wanted to see fish babies being raised at the hatchery. Back across the border into South Dakota we were looking for a Wendy’s but were unable to find one. So hungrily we entered the Historic Fish Hatchery. There were little ponds of all sizes holding fish of different ages and sizes. The biggest was about 3ft, we bought some pellets to feed them with and walked around looking for fish eggs and feeding the different fish as we went. Sadly the smallest fish on display there was about 5 to 6 inches. It was great fun feeding these fish though because when the pellets were dropped in there was a literal feeding frenzy. Tails flopping, water churning the fish went mad to get those little brown balls of food. We then headed to Deadwood to see gambling and fake gun-fighting. Deadwood was a wild gold panning town when South Dakota was being settled. It sprang up over night for the gold and was a hot bed for debauchery. Now it is all gambling the main street had a gambling parlor in every other establishment, we saw an ice cream parlor with gambling, restaurants with gambling. The main reason we went there was for the gun-fighting which was lame; we actually missed one show when we were playing Black Jack in a bar because we thought the show was at 8:30pm, but we heard gunshots at around 8:24pm. We cashed out went outside saw it was over and looked at each other. It was time to go. We left in search of Wendy’s again after having a little something back in Deadwood. The road we ended up driving had just about nothing on it let alone a Wendy’s. We had to stop frequently as we came upon groups of two to three deer in the middle of the road that didn’t move until we were right next to them beeping the horn. We changed drivers at around 10:30 and Devin drove the rest of the way to Cheyenne where we planned to stay for the night. By this time we were starving because we had been holding out for a Wendy’s, but realizing this was a lost cause we stopped at a gas station in Cheyenne. We asked the attendant where would be the best place to stay in town. He told us the refinery was being fixed and there were a lot of people from out of town fixing it, so we would have a heck of a time finding any place to stay. We drove back towards the highway and sure enough every hotel/motel we stopped at had a no vacancy sign in the window. We grudgingly decided to press on into Colorado and stop as soon as possible. We eventually found a motel 6 in Fort Collins another 45 min down the highway and promptly checked in and fell asleep all in one haphazard motion.
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