Day 2. Though we encountered no storms on day 1 or overnight, the weather took a major turn on day 2. Throughout the day the temps hovered in the mid to upper 90s. Morning on Day 2 was overcast and in the upper 50s. That was the warmest we would see all day - a drop of 40 degrees.
There were three key sights planned this day, based largely on the fact that my kids were a little young to clearly remember things 10 years ago, but they are older teens now. The first stop was at Badlands National Park, which is a wonderful display of geology. The trails were windy and cold at the park, but we spent a half hour or so climbing through the formations. We were even focused enough to avoid the typical tourist stop at Wall Drug. I've done that plenty of times before.
What we did add was a stop at the Geology Museum on the campus of SD School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City. They have a great collection that's free and open to the public. From there we continued to Mt Rushmore which was the second key sight that was partially forgotten by the kids. It seems that I can never pick the right day to visit myself, 10 years ago it was raining and this year it has just over 50 and windy. We did spot a decent rock shop a couple blocks of the main tourist drag, and some purchased Black Hills specimens became our souvenirs from the area.
The third key sight for the day was one I had not visited before, Devils Tower in WY. I had timed the leg of the trip to coincide with early evening with the sun lighting the tower at a shallow angle. Needless to say, I had not been optimistic all day as the skies remained stubbornly overcast. Yet, less than 20 miles away, the sky completely cleared giving me exactly the warm lighting I hoped for to bring out the colors of the Tower. Within a half hour of departure, the skies were overcast again, and an hour later it was pouring rain all the way from Gillette almost to Buffalo. The weather was kind enough to stop raining just before we got to Buffalo which is where we stopped for the night.
