Rapid City.... snow and Wyoming 3 times!!!!

So what happened in Rapid City?? and why Wyoming 3 times????
We drove up from Colarado and hit the Wyoming border, in contrast to Colarado, Wyoming is not mountainous.... it's not completely flat though. Just high up and flat plateaus... so there were lots of views that went on forever, and lots of unusual rock formations.
It had started getting colder in Colorado and this continued into Wyoming and the winds that we'd experienced in Oklahoma were back.... so it was quite a tough drive.

Then just as we were about sixty miles from Rapid City the clouds that had threatened rain decided to do more than threaten... but because of the altitude it fell as sleet then SNOW!! So we slowed down and began taking a little more care.... so we got there later than we thought....far too late as it turns out!

We weren't actually planning to stay in Rapid City but just outside at Hot Springs... unfortunately despite the fact they were supposed to be open until the end of that weekend, they had closed early for the winter, probably because of the eary bad weather (it doesn't normally start for another 4 weeks!!) So we had to attempt the drive into Rapid City in the dark to another site that we knew was open.... luckily the snow decided to slow down then stop!

So we arrived in the dark and OMG was it cold... trying to hook up was interesting as our fingers wouldn't work and no gloves (we'd brought thermals to sleep in.... not thinking it would get that cold this early!!)
So we "battened down the hatches" and went to bed... and woke up to a Christmas scene the next morning.

So we had to make some decisions about our plans for the next day or two as all the forecasts said that this weather was here for the weekend... and we had planned to go further north and west to Yellowstone. So after discussion with the campsite people and another look at the forecasts we reluctantly had to abandon our plans to go to Yellowstone as they had a foot of snow and were expecting more, although it was due to thaw on Monday.... too late for our timetable though!
So we checked to see if we could at least see the stuff we wanted to see in South Dakota and North Wyoming.... Devil's Tower was clear roads and accessible as was Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument so we decided to attempt them and then head south to warmer weather...
More tomorrow... got to get ready for breakfast!
Jane xx