Saturday, July 13th – Rapid City to Billings, MT Through the Northern Black Hills (645 km / 400 mi)

We headed north out of Rapid City and drove through Sturgis, SD… no Bike Rally while we were there, but that meant we COULD drive through town!

Then we went to Deadwood… Deadwood is where Wild Bill Hickok was killed, in Deadwood Saloon No. 10. They’ve kept the town fairly historic, with re-inactments and the Saloon still exists:

From Deadwood we drove through the Spearfish Canyon. Here’s Brian by Spearfish Creek – the trout were a plentiful!!

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming – what an incredible sight!!

Driving in from the south, looking north at Devils’s Tower

We walked the Tower Trail – a loop around the Tower about 2 miles long.

West side
Looking south from the Tower Trail
Southeast side
Northeast side
North side
Northwest side

Our route took us by the Little Bighhorn Battlefield National Monument, so just had to go see it!! It was another well-put-together National Site!! This photo is looking to the southwest, on the hill that was “Custer’s Last Stand”. The headstones were placed where the soldiers fell. They were later re-interred elsewhere, Cutler to Westpoint and the rest of the soldiers at a spot a few feet northeast of these markers.

Thunderstorms rolled through Montana all day – we were lucky and missed them all; just a few sprinkles now and then. We ended our day in Billings, at another great Italian restaurant – pizza was calling!!