Our fall auto trip took us to the Black Hills of South Dakota and several parks in Wyoming. Our primary initiator for the trip was a visit out to our friends, Chet and Delores Wisner, in Ft Collins, Colorado. We figured while we're out there, why not extend the trip a bit and do some hiking and sight seeing.

I wanted to get back to the Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I first saw it in 1971 and it didn't look much more than a very large mountain along with some very ambitious plans. We traveled again to the memorial in 1985 and again, we could see a painted outline of the final statue but no hope of seeing the finished product in our life time. So off we went this year to check up on progress. This assessment would take no more than a few hours and so we decided to spend some time checking out Custer State Park and then viewing the lighting ceromony at Mount Rushmore. After this we headed over to Devils Tower in Wyoming.

Devils Tower as you may recall, was featured in the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Tower is really quite amazing as it's basically what's left of the inside of an extinct volcano. The lava cooled to rock and over time the surrounding country side erroded away, leaving this 867 foot tower of granite. It's really spectacular. But again, with hiking, it's only a half day event.

So we figured we'd take in Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks on the way home.

It had been 40 years since either of us have been back to these parks and boy what a change. The most striking change is after effects of the 1988 fire which destroyed about a third of the park. While there are thousands of young trees, the burnt out trunks of the old trees serve as a grim reminder of the fire and continue to scar the hillsides. Very sad but as the rangers say, a very necessary part of the park's life cycle. Visiting Yellowstone this time of year was great in that there were NO crowds. Unfortunately not much was open. In fact all were closing the weekend we left. The first two weeks in September would be great. That's my advice.

Jackson Lake and Grand Tetons were the same. Great time for hiking but the park closes the middle of October.

We hope you enjoy these pictures.