Starting Point: Grand Teton National Park
Ending Point: Rapid City, SD
Total Distance: 600 Miles
I woke up at Colter Bay Campground at around 5AM and quickly packed up and started driving. About five minutes into my drive, it began raining heavily and continued to for the next few hours. I ended up just driving through the roads of Grand Teton National Park and then just continuing onward to Riverton, WY. Driving through Wyoming, I heard the song “Kick the Dust Up” by Luke Bryant and it sounded really fitting for the monotonous farm/country landscape.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWFhSlwwd2Q
Grand Teton paled in comparison to Yellowstone National Park. It’s a nice mountain range and surrounding area, but there just isn’t anything too spectacular about it. I think the main reason it’s popular is because of it’s proximity to Yellowstone National Park.
Due to the wet weather and the bland roads through Wyoming, I continued driving past my intended stopping point of Riverton, WY. My plan eventually became to continue on to Mount Rushmore and eventually to Rapid City, SD. On the way, I noticed Wind Cave National Park and spent an hour or two touring the park.
Afterwards, I continued on to Mount Rushmore. It’s an incredible work of an art, and there’s a great amount of work that went into it. From left to right, the four presidents featured in the sculpture are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. The sculpture was completed by Gutzon Borglum.
After visiting Mount Rushmore, I drove through the tourist town of Keystone, SD which would be a nice place to stop by and spend a lot of money if I was with kids. It’s the type of place that memories are made, with over-exaggerated tourist destinations, building facades, hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, etc.
I then continued and spent the night at Rapid City, SD.
