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Fun Ahead: Return of the Great American Road Trip
Park Bagging
Exploring the jewels of South Dakota and Wyoming

By Alan Kesselheim


	And the devil went down to Wyoming: Devils Tower National Monument (Glen Allison/PhotoDisc)

NO MATTER YOUR AGE, BOREDOM is not an option on this weeklong trip. The route from Rapid City, South Dakota, to Jackson, Wyoming, begins with giant tortoises and ends with Class III whitewater, packing in more variety than you'll find anywhere on the sunset side of the Mississippi. In 800 miles of plains and northern Rockies, there are marvels natural and man-made: geysers and grottoes, rodeos and reptile gardens, wolves and Wild West shootouts.

Day 1 >> Rapid City, South Dakota-Wind Cave National Park
Our first stop, Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, is an indulgence for the kids—Eli, ten; Sawyer, eight; and Ruby, six—that ends up seducing the parents. My wife, Marypat, and I find it fascinating, particularly Methuselah, a 600-pound Galapagos tortoise born in 1881. After a glimpse of Mount Rushmore (every American should see the presidential panorama at least once), the afternoon is devoted to more natural wonders, beginning with Custer State Park's Sylvan Lake. We intend to hike to Harney Peak, at 7,242 feet the highest mountain east of the Rockies, but are pleasantly waylaid by the unbeatable scrambling in thickets of granite spires. We drive south to Wind Cave National Park, where we nab a campsite and a grotto tour.

Park Bagging: The Details

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Day 2 >> Wind Cave National Park-Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming
With bellies full of pancakes from the Elkhorn Cafe in Hot Springs, we check out the Mammoth Site, an excavation of a mud pit full of the beasts. The kids are duly impressed, but after an hour they've had enough of big bones, so it's back north and west to Custer to see the Crazy Horse Memorial, a mountain-size statue of the Indian leader astride his steed. We cross into Wyoming and reach Devils Tower National Monument. The enormous igneous pillars are the core of a volcano that has long since eroded away. With plenty of daylight left, we settle on a campsite and walk the Red Beds Trail, a three-mile saunter.

Day 3 >> Devils Tower National Monument-Cody
This is the longest driving day, and it marks our transition from the flats to the mountains. After Buffalo, the road turns to two-lane as we enter the Bighorn Mountains. We detour south to The Nature Conservancy's Tensleep Preserve to picnic and stretch our legs on the two-mile trail to Dedication Point; it seems as if we can see half of Wyoming from the rock perch.

In Cody we pick a motel after two nights' camping. Our exploration of town starts with dinner at the Irma Hotel (Founder Buffalo Bill named it after his daughter) and a shootout on a side street at 6 p.m. Then we're off to the rodeo (there's a show every summer night). It's real rodeo: bronc riding, clowns, and an event featuring all comers under 12 (including ours) in a chaotic stampede after a little steer with a ribbon on its tail.

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