Road Trip - Day 4

Okay, so remember a few days ago when we ate at the Purple Pie Place and talked to the owners for a bit? They told us that Bear Country U.S.A. was pretty cool, so we thought we'd check it out. So - day 4 started with a trip to Bear Country. I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical. I thought we'd maybe see a bear or two if we were lucky, but that they'd probably be hiding away behind the fences or in their little caves and we wouldn't see very many. I was definitely wrong. There were bears EVERYWHERE. They would just wander along down the road right up next to your car! And seriously, we probably saw at least 50 bears. I've never seen a bear outside of the zoo before, so I quite enjoyed seeing all of the bears. They were SOO cute!

They had a few other kind of animals there too. My favorite was that little bird sitting on the back of that deer. Is that not a shot straight out of Bambi??

Look at all of these bears!! They were seriously everywhere. 

This video is so cute! He was just scratching his leg the whole time. What a cutie. :)

There was also a baby section of Bear Country, and we got to go see the baby bears play with each other. They were so stinkin' cute - too bad they grow up to be so scary!

After Bear Country, we decided to drive out to a city called Deadwood that was famous for housing two famous Wild Westerners - Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. They are buried in Deadwood, so we went to go find their graves. As we were pulling in, we just saw cars and cars and cars EVERYWHERE. We had hit relatively little traffic or crowds our entire trip and were surprised to see such a big crowd here. We soon found out that there was a car show that day in the middle of town, and all the locals were out to see the cars. No wonder it was crowded! Luckily the cemetery wasn't crowded at all, so once we made it past the craziness of the town, it was pretty quiet. The cemetery was a bit lack luster for having such cool people buried there, but we weren't too picky.

Here's something totally weird. It is rumored that Wild Bill and Calamity Jane were sweethearts, and that is why they are buried beside each other. We were walking past these signs and my little sister realized that Wild Bill was born on my Dad's birthday and Calamity Jane was born on my mom's birthday!!! Is that the weirdest thing ever?? I think they need to be Wild Bill and Calamity Jane for Halloween or something. That is too crazy.

After Deadwood, we took a long drive to Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. Devil's Tower has an old, Indian legend attached to it. They believe that there were some girls who were out playing when a group of bears started running towards them. The girls, having nowhere to go, climbed on top of a small rock and began to pray to the Great Spirit to save them. The Great Spirit then made the rock raise up towards the sky, high enough that the bears couldn't reach them. The bears kept trying to claw their way up to the top, but to no avail. The girls were then transformed into stars and formed a constellation. The claw marks from the bear are still on the side of the rock. 

I can totally understand why it was so mystifying. It's this big giant rock in the middle of nowhere with what really do look like claw marks surrounding it. I actually thought it was a pretty cool story. It was a long drive to get out there, but definitely worth it.

Don't they look like claw marks??

This picture comes with a funny story. I kept telling my mom that she was in Steph's picture and needed to get out and she just kept trying to get lower and lower to the ground. For this picture, she was POSITIVE that she couldn't be seen. "There's no way you can see me from here! I'm hidden!" Well, she was still seen, but it made for a funny picture.

By the time we were finished at Devil's Tower it was almost sunset. We made the long drive back to Custer, South Dakota listening to The Chronicles of Narnia. We grabbed a quick dinner at Pizza Works, and then went back to crash at the hotel. It was a long day of driving, but for sure worth it to see such cool things.