7th Ranch RV Camp Garryowen, Montana

Mileage:  40,487

Our day today began at midnight.  From the time we lay down at 9pm until midnight there had been tremendous lightening.  There was no forecast for rain.  But in the middle of the night raindrops began to pelt our Jeep.  We quickly adjusted a tarp in an attempt to stay dry.  That didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.  We will be improving our amenities so that we can have this kind of adventure again…because although we did not sleep very well…it was totally worth it and we would do it again.

We got up at 5am with the sun.

By 5:30am we were packed and ready to go.  We decided to take the longer, more scenic route back through the park.

It was a foggy morning and I was initially disappointed because I didn’t think we would see much.

Bison materialized out of the mist.

We saw lots of mule deer, rabbits, bighorn sheep and birds.

We were fortunate to be able to see the Badlands in bright sunshine, at dawn, at dusk, with fog, and during a thunderstorm.  Each scenario created dramatically different vistas and we didn’t get tired of traveling along the park loop.  It is time though to move on.  We know that there is a lot more to see in South Dakota and that will have to wait until next summer!

We stopped to rest from 9:30am til 11am.  A great advantage of traveling in an RV.  We were in Wyoming before noon, traveling through the Black Hills.

Pronghorn antelope were scattered in the tall grassy fields along the road.

The closer we got to Montana, the more scrubby and rocky the landscape became.

All at once we saw snow covered peaks in the distance.  It was a “wow” moment as we realized that we were getting our first look at the Rocky Mountains.

We passed the 2,000 mile mark before we left Wyoming.  We are staying the night in a full hookup campground and we will sleep in our own bed, after posting the blog and doing the laundry.

We didn’t need the weather channel to know that it was going to rain.  We could see it coming from  miles away.