Devils Tower and Mount Rushmore

I made a couple of stops in between national parks. The first one was Devils Tower. That is where Close Encounter of a Third Kind was filmed. It was everything that that I saw in the movie except there were no mashed potatoes. I was there on July 4^th. The campground had their own fireworks show that was spectacular. They shot them off even though there was a thunderstorm going on. It was the first time I ever watched fireworks when I was surrounded by mountains and thunder and lightening while it was pouring down rain. The amazing thing was listening to the large booms going off and then the echoing of the booms off the surrounding mountains all mixed in with the flashes of lightening and the sound of thunder. Because it was raining so hard that I didn’t get any pictures. The next stop was Mount Rushmore and Keystone South Dakota. I went up to the mountain and got pictures and then went back that night to watch the lighting ceremony. The faces were beautiful. The other thing I did there was take a round trip on the 1880 railway train from Keystone to Old City. It was an hour each way. I took some scenic pictures and some of deer standing beside the tracks.