Some unanticipated excitement in SD

Before leaving Wyoming, we went to Devil's Tower National Monument - an impressive monolith. We made our way to Mt. Rushmore and started to hear something with our car. We saw the sculpted mountain (which is an improvement over the last time J and I tried to see it during a blizzard with white out conditions). As we left we were convinced we needed to get the car to a mechanic asap. Turns out we were right. There was an issue with the wheel bearing and that issue was causing the back left tire to wear quickly. We were very close to blowing out a tire which could have been disastrous (especially on Beartooth Highway where we were the day before!) The incredibly nice person at Tires, Tires, Tires gave us a ride to a nearby gas station which had an amazing make your own pizza place and bar inside it. Joshua and I dubbed it the nicest gas station we had ever been in and were grateful to be able to spend a couple of hours there rather than somewhere else. We are now the proud owners of 4 new tires and the car is all set so in the grand scheme of things we were incredibly fortunate. To say we have been places during this trip where it would be awful to blow out a tire would be a huge understatement. We made it to Badlands in enough time to check out lookouts on the way to the campground and catch the sunset as we rushed to set up the tent with lots of wind. We went to the night ranger talk on black footed ferrets and the subsequent sky viewing event. The girls had lots of questions for the rangers who rewarded their curiosity with a special night explorer patch. We experienced a very windy last camping night of the trip complete with Joshua wrestling the fly into submission at 3:30am. It was a long day with a near miss and a long night but there's lots to be thankful for.