On Day 2 of our RV trip to Des Moines, Iowa, we drove from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota with a visit to Wind Cave National Park along the way.
Sights along the way
We passed through Torrington and other small agricultural towns as we made our way up the east edge of Wyoming. The rolling hills were still relatively green, even in August.
Soon after we crossed the state line from Wyoming to South Dakota, a bridge led us over the Cheyenne River. We past many hay fields and large rolls of "patriotic" hay has we approached the town of Hot Springs, South Dakota. Hot Springs looks like a great place to explore... maybe on a future trip. During this trip the charming downtown streets were ripped up for construction. Plus, we had afternoon reservations for the Candlelight tour at Wind Cave National Park.
Exploring Wind Cave National Park
This was our first visit to Wind Cave National Park and, fortunately, we looked ahead to see what activities might require reservations. According to the National Parks app, the two Gems (must-see attractions) in Wind Cave National Park are Blacktail Prarie Dog Town and Wind Cave Guided Tours. You can visit Blacktail Prarie Dog Town on your own. You cannot, however, enter Wind Cave without a guide.
Wind Cave is the 7th longest cave in the world and one of the most complex. The park offers a variety of guided tours from the wheelchair-friendly Accessibility Tour to the most strenuous Wild Cave Tour. We chose the second most strenuous option, the Candlelight Tour. Both the Candlelight and Wild Cave tours are only offered during the summer and are limited to 10 people. The other tours allow up to 40 people.
We thoroughly enjoyed our Candlelight Tour which led us from the elevator to the Pearly Gates. Our tour was supposed to return to the elevator for our ascent to the surface but the elevator broke down during our tour. So, we enjoyed an extended tour, and an additional 300+ stairs, as we made our way along the Natural Entrance Tour route to the natural cave entrance.
A cool cave tour was the perfect way to spend that extremely hot and humid afternoon. The only downside of our tour was that we weren't allowed to bring phones, cameras, keys, or anything that might fall down crevices and get lost. So, we have no pictures of our wonderful tour of Wind Cave. If I have the opportunity to visit Wind Cave National Park again, while I'm still agile enough to crawl through tight spaces, I would schedule two cave tours including the more adventurous Wild Cave Tour plus one of the easier tours so I could take a few pictures!
After our extended cave tour, we decided to head for Rapid City and find a place to camp for the night. It was still too hot and muggy to enjoy a hike through the park. We found an opening at Rapid City RV Park and Campground where we could plug into electric and crank up the AC!
Slideshow - Day 2
Here are our few photos from Wind Cave National Park and some of our sights along the way.
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