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This is the fourth article in a series of 7 called Road trip from Phoenix to Mount Rushmore. Check out the introduction to this series in “Day 1, Rim Country Arizona; New Mexico; Pagosa Springs, Colorado.”
After loading up in Cheyenne, where we stopped for the night on Day 3 of our road trip from Phoenix to Mount Rushmore, we got on the road. We took US and state routes through the western-most part of Nebraska, our fifth state of the trip.
As you may know, there’s not a whole lot going on in western Nebraska. We did find the town of Scottsbluff, where we grabbed some coffee and continued, turning north along the way.
Just before crossing into South Dakota, we drove through Oglala National Grassland. Entering South Dakota was where our trip really started to get fun!
Wind Cave National Park
One of the first places we checked out in South Dakota was Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave is known its wildlife, but not many were out this day. Probably due to the looming threat of rain. We did see a lot of prairie dogs, though, and they were so unexpectedly tiny that we did not capture any photos.
It’s definitely worth mentioning that Wind Cave National Park is FREE to get into! If you want to get into any of the actual caves, there are nominal fees for those. We opted not to do those, because we wanted to get on to other places (but mostly we were distracted looking for wildlife and trying to outrun the rain).
As you can see from the photos, the state line and extreme South Dakota is a pretty flat part of the country. But about halfway between the state line and Rapid City, the geography begins to change. You can see behind the Wind Cave sign some gentle rolling hills begin to appear.
Mount Rushmore
After this, we headed up US 16A. Our daughter didn’t know it, but a big surprise was waiting here. She’d been talking a lot – probably more than a normal first grader – about wanting to see Mount Rushmore, because she’d just learned about it in school. This was partly the reason we extended our trip all the way to South Dakota.
We somehow managed to distract her each time we saw a sign telling us how far away it was, and even as we passed through the massive tourist trap in Keystone she still wasn’t quite sure where we were.
But finally, there they were:
By the time we were out of Mount Rushmore, it was dinner time. We headed to our Airbnb in Rapid City, grabbed an easy dinner at Culver’s, and called it a day.
The next morning, we hit up this amazing cafe in downtown Rapid City called Harriet & Oak. Can’t recommend enough if you wind up there while exploring the area. The food was amazing, and so was the coffee! It was one of the best coffee shops of our trip, and one of the best breakfasts.
Bear Country USA
After that, we went to Bear Country USA. If you’re reading this from Arizona, then know that this place is a lot like Bearizona, so if you’ve already done that you may or may not find it worth the money to see.
Bear Country USA had a variety of animals including reindeer, mule deer, pronghorn, arctic wolves, bighorn sheep, elk, badgers, arctic foxes, red foxes, otters, groundhogs, skunks, bobcats, javelina, coyotes, and of course, black bears.
Bear Country USA was one of the places where I took out my action cam, and captured video of our drive through the park.
There was also an adorable section of a couple dozen baby cubs playing with each other, climbing logs, and splashing in a small pond. It was super cute to watch.
The best part of the cub exhibit was that it was in the walking section, which meant we could stay as we wanted and watch them. The walking exhibit included several other animals – coyote, red fox, a skunk, and several others, but the cub exhibit was easily the largest and funnest to watch.
We spent a good hour and a half looking at all the animals before heading into the gift shop, and felt the value was good overall. We paid $80 for two adults and a child – but Bear Country USA has an $80 per vehicle maximum, so that means if we’d been driving a big van full of other people, we’d still only have paid $80! That makes this a really great deal if you have a big family or large group.
Other Attractions Between Mount Rushmore and Rapid City
We didn’t stop at any of these, but there is a string of attractions between Mount Rushmore and Rapid City along US 16. They’re pretty touristy, but no doubt you could have a blast at most of them:
- Keystone shops and restaurants
- Hill City 1880 train
- Dinosaur Museum
- Sugar Park
- Reptile Gardens
- Rushmore Candy Company
- Old Macdonald’s Farm
- Big Thunder Gold Mine
Downtown Rapid City
After Bear Country, we went for lunch to Dakota Meat Company downtown. For this, we were able to park in a garage right next door where parking was only $1 per hour. The burger I had was phenomenal, and clearly fresh. Maggie opted for a healthier option, a teryaki chicken skewer, and said it was pretty standard. The place also serves as a meat market, with several chests of varying types of local meats like bison and wagyu beef.
We came in for an early lunch, so we were greeted at the register where our order was taken. The food took a good long while to come out, and we noticed the register/counter was neglected once a few other people had ordered – a couple actually left after no one came to the counter to take their order. So it might not be a good choice if you’re in a hurry. But man, that burger was good!
While we were downtown, we visited Sioux Trading Post, which featured familiar items like Pendleton blankets, but also some rather expensive jewelry, art, and decor.
We also stopped by Alex Johnson Mercantile (a gift shop) and Roam’n Around (sporting goods). I also meant to go into Black Hills Vinyl and Tandy Leather, but sadly forgot.
We also grabbed an afternoon coffee at Speed Goat Express Coffee. Coffee was decent and the service was good. We also tried to go into The Sour, a local bakery, but it was closed. We were able to stop here the following day on the way out of town, though – Maggie picked up a loaf of sourdough and some pastries, and they were all great.
Dinosaur Park
In this part of the country, there’s a lot of attractions related to animals, gold mining, and national parks – but there’s a lot of dinosaur stuff. So if you or your kids are into dinosaurs at all, combine it with the national parks and make a week or two of it. That said, we had a limited amount of days so we didn’t visit any dinosaur-related places, except Dinosaur Park in Rapid City.
It’s a city park with large dinosaur structures to look at and get photos with – great for a good walk, too. And best of all, it’s FREE!
After Dinosaur Park, we decided it was time for a break from going and doing, and went back to our Airbnb to unwind for the afternoon. If you’d rather not have downtime, Badlands National Park is about an hour east of Rapid City. Rapid City was roughly our halfway point on our road trip, so that meant we’d be going west from there and would not pass through the Badlands on our way home.
Up next: Phoenix to Mount Rushmore Road Trip Day 6: Spearfish and Casper
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