Day 4 — Spearfish, SD to Billings, MT

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Pine & Fur
Aug 26, 2017 · 4 min read

Waking up in Spearfish Canyon after a full night of sleep was both refreshing and calming. The moment we woke up we could hear birds chirping and water rushing through the creek. The puppies were happy and cuddly as well.

This morning we were headed to Devil’s Tower — the second actual stop on our road trip route! The drive from our camp to Devil’s Tower was only about an hour, but there was plenty of windy, hilly roads on the way. The tower was in view from about 10 miles out (if we remember correctly), and it was huge; it is hard to grasp the enormity of the monument from pictures.

We passed through the pay station with our America the Beautiful pass (which is proving to have been a great buy), and drove to the visitor center. Once there we grabbed the pups, let them chug some water, and followed a group of people up a path. Staring straight up at the tower truly makes you feel so tiny. The path we were on will take you all the way around the tower in about 45 minutes, but since it was so hot we just decided to walk a bit and then turn around so the dogs didn’t get too hot.

Although we had a lot of people smile at the dogs and tell us how cute they were, we soon found out that they weren’t supposed to be up on that trail. On our way down we had a couple people (not so nicely) tell us our dogs weren’t allowed. We tried to be polite and just told them we hadn’t seen any signs, but we were on our way out anyways. After reaching the bottom of the trail we then discovered the “No Pets Allowed” signs — Opps! :( We realized that we had followed people up a grass trail when heading up to the paved path, so we missed the signs on the way up.

We felt a little guilty for taking the dogs — the park has those rules for a reason, but we truly didn’t know. Although feeling guilty, we also felt a bit lucky that we made that mistake. It allowed us to get a close up view of the tower that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see! Since it was an honest mistake… no harm, no foul, right? In the future we’ll have to be on a better lookout for trailhead signs!

Anyways, after seeing Devil’s Tower we headed West/Northwest towards Montana. The rest of the day was packed full of more hilly roads with more than enough twists and turns, and extremely windy conditions. To put it simply, it sucked. We also learned that Montana is full of big dead trees, maybe due to wild fires? Either way, it wasn’t the prettiest, but as the day went on the scenery got more interesting.

We ended our day in Billings, Montana, and learned the hard way that while spontaneity can be fun and exciting, it can also cause problems. After getting into Billings we were both tired, hungry, and a little (or a lot) grumpy. We then discovered that the closest available campgrounds were still another hour away. After sitting at a gas station for probably a half hour being grumpy and unable to make decisions on what to do, we finally settled for Little Caesar’s pizza, and a hotel room.

We kind of felt like we were cheating staying in a hotel room, but to be honest it really was a good night. It helped us relax and get a good night sleep so we could get up and hit the road yet again!

Pine & Fur 🌲🐶


Miles Traveled

345 today / 1,220 total

States Visited

South Dakota / Wyoming / Montana

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Pine & Fur

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