Today rocked as well!

Shorter post today, I spent most of my time posting pictures. We're at the Red Rock River Resort in Hot Springs, SD tonight. It was a little more than the other hotels in the area, but it's a really cute hotel and our room rate included unlimited use of their spa! So we think we're pretty smart. They have a hot tub and sauna, plus a cool Korean hot sand room and a hot granite room. The last two seem to basically be radient heat floors with various stuff over the top. They were both great, definitely try those if you run across them.

It was a super busy day today, and lots of fun! We started at the Minuteman Missile park just outside Wall -- it's the newest National Park! We lucked out again in that it's the last day they'll be doing tours for some time, while they redo the electrical. This normally isn't my kind of thing, but it was really interesting and I learned a lot. In fact, I learned enough stuff that, had I known it beforehand I would've been way more interested to go in the first place! Who can ask for more than that?

We saw Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monuments today, and then headed into Custer State Park. We did a little hiking, checked out the local wildlife, etc. Another fun day with animal sightings -- two chipmunks actually came up and tugged our pant legs! It was cute but sad because we figure they've been fed by tourists.

We saw bison grazing in the park as well, but my pictures didn't turn out very well. The last one of the day was less than 100 yards away and GIGANTIC, but my camera chose that exact moment to run out of battery ooomph. Oh well.

We headed for Hot Springs, which is super cute, and into the aforementioned spa! I could spend hours lollygagging around in there. :) It is vacation, after all.

More later! Tomorrow we'll see either Jewel Cave or Wind Cave, then do the scenic highways leading into Lead / Deadwood. We like this hotel so much we're tempted to drive back down to Hot Springs tomorrow night, but it would eat abt 3 hrs in driving. . . We'll see. I think Matt's hot to hit a casino in Deadwood anyway.

Don't forget to check out today's pictures!