Day 9

I felt like we really did not get enough good coal industry photos yesterday, so we started today with a few stops:

A BNSF coal train:

The Wyodak coal fired plant:

And adjoining Wyodak mine, the 30th largest coal producing mine in the US:

And the conveyor belt that takes coal from the mine under I-90 to the plant! I found out too late you can get tours of this entire operation:

For the more nature loving folks we also saw the Big Horn mountains:

Before we left Wyoming we made a detour to Devil's Tower. This was America's first national monument, created in 1906 by President Roosevelt.

Here is what it looks like from afar. It really is unlike anything I have ever seen before:

This was my lame attempt at an album cover at the view point:

Once we got to Devil's Tower and picnicked we decided that instead of taking the 1 mile hike that everyone else was on, we would take the 3 mile Red Beds trail. Only Heath was in decent walking shoes so it was a bit of a challenge but we got some great views.

We also had the trail pretty much to ourselves:

Mike and Andrew's matchy matchy plaid look is really giving Heath's tiger shirt a run for it's money in this shot:

I think that's Heidi's gang sign.

There were also some stunning views of the area:

Aww, I have so very few of these type of photos:

We figured out why it was called the Red Beds trail right around this point. We are a pretty sharp bunch:

The amazing thing about Devil's Tower is that it looks so different depending on which side you are facing: 

On our way out we stopped to visit the prairie dogs. It was all fun and games until I read that black widow spiders also live in those holes. I had us back in the car and out of there in under a minute:

We finally wore her out!:

We left Wyoming and are now in South Dakota. Here is our official entry:

We arrived in Keystone this afternoon and surprise, surprise went straight to the hotel pool. 

This is 50% of our vacation:

Tomorrow we plan to visit all the sights but so far our take is that this is a pretty tacky place. I am not sure why we would be surprised that a monument of four presidents carved in stone would be a tourist trap!

We got dinner right by our hotel at Barlees, a restaurant that can only be in business because of it's location. It was truly terrible. 

This is the face of a man that has driven nearly 2000* miles in the last week. Hopefully the beer should help!:

* I've done some, maybe a tenth.