Big rocks 'n' big heads

Did some more of the Badlands today. We had planned to bike it, the shortest route being 17miles long, but when we got up it was just soooo hot, we worked up a sweat just gettin our breaky ready! So instead we drove the "loop". It made my day as we finally got to drive some dirt tracks :-) And we saw some Prarie Dogs.

The Badlands are a fantastic place, the colours vivid, the landscape... errr... spikey! We took a drive up to Sheep Mountain, an unvisited uncommercialised gravel track thats a dead end. As hoped, it was deserted, not a soul in sight.



We then headed off in search of some big ugly blokes on the side or a mountain... Yep, Mt Rushmore. A word of advise if you ever come out here... take route 16A, Iron Horse mountain road. The views are stunning and the drive almost like something you'd find in the Alps. And there is the most wicked bridge things going on :-)
Also, unless you are particularly interested in the history of the place (most of which is avaialble in books like the Rough Guides anyway), don't bother with the visitors centre. You can get the views of the mountian from the road just as clearly and save yourself $8 :-)

We are now at yet another KOA campsite, just down the road from Mt Rushmore and are just off to the bar for a bite to eat and a beer or 6. In the morning we are heading to Yellowstone so don't expect to hear much from us over the next week or so 'cos we'll be going "wow!" a lot in some pretty remote places... or at least thats the plan!