Jewel Cave National Monument was our first stop, with over 190 miles of explored passages. It's the 3rd largest cave system in the world after Mammoth Cave and a cave in Mexico. I'm quite sure at this point that I totally love caves, so next time I explore I'll need to do some spelunking. Most of what we saw in Jewel Cave looked like someone had pinned millions of balloons everywhere and then sprayed 6 inches of plaster. It also had cave bacon - a 20 foot strip of dripping minerals that looked just like bacon - and flowstone, which looked like Cthulu and minions were pushing their faces through the stone walls.
From there we went to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. That site is just weird and unique. It is a singular formation rising up out of the earth with well-defined columns that are 5-20 feet wide. It stands wide and tall, apparently the top is roughly the size of a football field. And climbers love it. There were dozens of climbers on all sides of the tower. We took the trail around it to stare in amazement from every angle. Then on to Spearfish to visit Caitlin at Crow Peak brewery and grab supper (poutine...mmm).
Sunday we drove a couple hours down to the Mammoth Site, with Montana's wild fires covering the entire area with increasingly thick smoke. This forced us to bail on any kind of outdoor activities, and also made the landscape rather oppressive. At Mammoth Site there were known remains of 60+ mammoths that had slipped into an ancient sinkhole, never to escape. Plus, remains of the extinct short-faced bear. It was gigantic, apparently, larger than any modern bear. They had a fake tree trunk with claw marks showing how high different bears can reach. I did not realize how small grizzly bears are compared to polar bears.
We ended the night at Prairie Berry Winery and Miner's Brewery. They have a really nice campus, and apparently I really like black currents.
