Day 14: Drive to Sheridan WY

Ok, this looked like a short day trip on paper (or Mapquest), only 250 miles to Sheridan. But for some reason we ended up doing several detours, and the day became very long...

To our friend Billy: We have been in Sturgis!!! Ok, only for an half-hour, and only to buy some souvenirs, but anyway....

Otherwise, we started the day by going to Deadwood. Yes, that Deadwood, as in the TV-show. Now a historical town, 120 years ago a gold digger town, with real gun fights. Here, we looked at the graves of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. And saw the saloon where Wild Bill was killed, while playing poker, holding his famous "Dead man's hand". In this town Buffalo Bill died as well, more about him later.

After that, we left South Dakota and entered Wyoming. Just to end up in the next famous Western town, Sundance. Yes, the town that Sundance Kid is named after. Here, he lived and was jailed. We had lunch at a very normal Subway restaurant....

Ok, since it today has been 100F (38C), we thought "why not some hiking???". And somewhere, very close to nowhere, 30 miles off the interstate, we found the 1st US National Monument, the Devil's Tower. Look at the photo and you understand why it has that name... It is the remains of an old volcano, only the magma remains, as a high rock standing all by itself in the countryside. The kids loved climbing all the rocks around it. But after a 1.5 mile hike we where kind of warm...

Finally, after a long day, we arrived in Sheridan. Sheridan is famous for Buffalo Bill, he lived here a lot. So, lots of gunfighters today... Anyway, we will only stay the night here. Tomorrow, we'll go to Yellowstone NP. I'm not sure if we have Internet access at the hotel, so don't worry if we're off the net for three days.

And by the way, I think I've said before that "Today we've been in the middle of nowhere...". Forget that! Wyoming must be one of the most isolated places in the US. Only dry grassland for miles and miles, with some isolated farms. During one part of the freeway, there is NOTHING for 55 miles!