Our First Long Trip Day Five

We finally arrived at our destination of Gillette, WY. We were there to attend the first Great North American RV Rally sponsored by the Good Sam RV Club. We were supposed to meet some friends from Mobile, AL at the WalMart parking lot on Friday. When we tried to dive into the lot it was "wall to wall" with RVs of every size and shapes. We had to go to the Big K lot down the street to park. We walked all over the lots but they weren't there yet.

We had the opportunity to get into the rally campground Friday night so we took it. Our friends finally found us on Saturday and as hard as they tried, they couldn't get in. They were not "happy campers" cause they had to "dry camp" two days. They were unable to get in until Monday afternoon.

The Rally began on July 17 and ended July 20. There were a little over 5,400 RVs there and that did not include the RVs for sale. There was a lot to see and do at the Rally. The headline entertainers were the Oak Ridge Boys and they put on a GREAT show.

The Oakridge Boys

We made a side trip to Devil's Tower National Park. The Devil's Tower was featured in the movie "Close Encounters of a Third Kind". However none of the movie was filmed here. They came here and took a ton of pictures and then went back to the sound stage built in Mobile, AL and made a scale model of it and filmed the movie there. Devil's Tower is actually the "core of a volcano".

The Indian myth is that several Indian maidens were being chased by a BIG GRIZZLY BEAR and they got on top of the Tower which was a lot smaller. They began to pray to their Gods not to let the bear get them. The Tower began to rise taller and taller. The bear began to try to claw his way to the top and the marks in the Tower came from the Bear's claws.

All good things must come to an end and the Rally ended with a rodeo on Thursday night. On Friday morning the officials of the rally complex wanted all 5,400 RVs out by noon. Yea right..it took 3 days to get them all in, how can you expect to get them all out in half a day. It didn't happen. We were lucky and were able to get out fairly early Friday and make our way back to Rapid City, SD.

We stayed at Ellsworth AFB and used it as a base camp to see all the sites in the area. After spending one night in the overflow area we were able to get into the FAMCAMP with full hook ups. The nice part of staying on a Base is the use of the commissary, and PX to get any needed supplies.