Black Hills South Dakota

We did a lot of sightseeing, here as there was a lot to see. I am glad we booked a week.

One day we went to Deadwood and Sturgis. I’m sure everyone is familiar with Sturgis’ claim to fame. This year will be the 77th Annual Motorcycle rally held there. The town was pretty dead, as the Rally doesn’t start until the first full week of August. This is why we need to be out of the campground as they are full for the next month. But from what I hear from locals, I don’t think I want to be here for that anyway…too many people!! We did find the Harley store and Curt got his picture taken so he could send it to a friend—Chuck!

Deadwood was pretty crowded for being a weekday. We walked up and down the streets of Deadwood and came upon a few reenactments.

We made sure we went to Saloon #10 where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. Do you know what hand of cards he was holding, that is now known as the Dead Man’s Hand? (Answer will be posted below). How about who killed him? That would be Jack McCall. If you are in Deadwood on any day but Sunday in the Summer, you can attend the trial of Jack McCall.

The day was hot, so we of course went looking for a winery to rest our weary bones. We found a wine bar in Deadwood called the Deadwood winery. You could taste wine or beer, but we stuck to the wines and enjoyed a little charcuterie tray. Good up sale by the bartender. She was from Sturgis and told us how crazy Sturgis can get during the rally.

When we got to Sturgis (our second stop), we found a very nice winery on a hill and relaxed there before heading home. The lady who worked here told us about the signs we see on the road that say “highway closed” and how often that happens. Not as often as you think she said, but told us of one time a few years ago that they got 3 feet of snow that was drifting for 3 days before the road was open. No thank you to living here—no more snow!

This visit also allowed us to meet up with some friends. On Saturday we went out to lunch with a friend that I used to work with when I was stationed at the Pentagon in DC. They were on a 2 week vacation from their home in Las Vegas and were traveling across South Dakota and Yellowstone and we just happened to be in this area together. It was great catching up with them.

On Sunday we were invited to dinner at another friend’s home. She worked on MHS GENESIS project in DC and came out to visit with us at Fairchild a time or two. She was very supportive to me personally and I loved working with her. She just decided she wanted to retire here after 8 years in DC. She has a beautiful home in the hills not too far from Mount Rushmore. While we were eating dinner, we were visited by a herd of deer and a wild turkey. Might not be a bad place to live if they didn’t have SNOW!!

We visited the Badlands on what I think was the hottest day we had here. We didn’t get out of the car very often as the temperature hit 109 degrees according to a bank sign in Wall, SD. We’ll get to Wall in a minute. The Badlands were beautiful. We saw many folks braving the heat to hike the trails, not us, we just did a windshield tour. Below are a few pictures. Curt kept saying, I think we were here before, it all looks very familiar, and although we have never been to SD, there is the Painted Desert in Arizona, where we were stationed for 3 years 1997-2000 which is very similar.
On the way back from the Badlands, we drove through Wall, SD. There were many signs telling us we could get free ice water at Wall Drug. Wall Drug takes up the entire city block. It has multiple gift stores, café, ice cream parlor, and a wet park area for the kids to cool off and it was well needed today.
Our trip to Mount Rushmore was on Monday morning. We booked a tour that included breakfast and dinner show. The tour started at 0730 and ended about 0830 and it was about 35 minutes from the base. We had to do some calling around, but did find a doggy day care/kennel to board Daisy overnight. We would have never left her alone in the camper so long. The ZZZ kennel was great. I don’t know why there are not more kennels around these national monuments/parks that offer doggy day care that is easy. One place I called required us to bring Daisy in for a 4 hour acquaintance visit—not ideal with limited time. Daisy even got a bath out of the deal!
The Fort Hayes Mount Rushmore tour was well worth the $99/each it cost us. It was nice to give Curt a chance to look out the window instead of keeping his eyes on the road. Like I said, it started out with breakfast. The Fort Hayes place has the Dances With Wolves movie set (which you can visit for free if you are just driving by). You can make a brick or stamp a tin plate. At 0830 they loaded us on a bus in the order that your reservation was booked. We were on the 2nd bus, but got very lucky although we were about the 4th or 5th party called, the front row was still open. We grabbed that! We had great views out the front and side windows.
The first stop was Mount Rushmore. Our next door neighbor at the campground at Ellsworth told me that the best time to see Mt R was between 0900 and 1200 for the best lighting, so this timing was perfect. We have also heard that the evening lighting show is a good time too, but that didn’t work out for us. If you try it, let us know how you liked it.
I felt a little rushed at Mount Rushmore and would have liked a little more time. But we did get our pictures and watched a movie about the carving of the monument.

We then took a drive on Iron Mountain Road (the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway). There were 3 tunnels on this road and you can view Mount Rushmore through each of them—pretty cool. You could tell that some of the people didn’t realize it as they drove through the tunnel take their picture of Mount Rushmore.
After that we drove through Custer State Park, supposedly to find wildlife, but we did not see ANY wildlife here 
We had lunch at the State Game Lodge. They said that this was the Summer Home to Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower. Curt had the buffet which included Buffalo Stew and I got the Cobb Salad that was adorned with Buffalo Bacon. So the bus driver requested that those sitting in the back of the bus be the first to exit the bus to be first in line for lunch. Remember, we were in the front seat which means we were last in line. We only had an hour for lunch and the line was not moving. 20 minutes in and we still had not gotten seated. I went looking for another venue for lunch and found the “bar and lounge”. I asked the bartender if we could eat at the bar and he said absolutely! So I went and got Curt and we sat at the bar for lunch. Guess who was sitting next to me…the Ken the Bus Driver. He knew where to get personalized service too!
After lunch we were off and headed for Needles Highway. It was very scary sitting in the front seat and probably even scarier if you were the car coming towards this big bus on these narrow winding roads. A couple of times I thought the bus was going to force the other cars off the road, because we were so big and the roads were so small!! Ken, the Bus Driver, told us he was the 2nd best driver behind the other 4 drivers that were tied for 1st, but I thought he was very entertaining. He also maneuvered the bus very well, and told lots of great stories. I took a video of us going through the last tunnel, but if you google “Charter Bus in Rock Tunnel” you will see what a feat it was to get through. It was extremely tight and having the front seat made it even better. He probably made a lot of people very mad as he paused in the middle of the tunnel to finish telling a story and then proceeded to blow the horn and make gestures so the people in the oncoming cars would think he was stuck. It was quite funny.

Next stop was Sylvan Lake, time to stretch our legs and take some pictures.
Last stop was the Crazy Horse Memorial. Wow, what a sight! It was quite impressive and to learn about the family that is leading the charge to carve this memorial was inspiring. The original sculptor who died a few years back, Korzak Ziolkowski, had a vision and his wife (who also passed in 2014) and 7 of his 10 children now continue their father’s life work. The reason it has been taking so long…they are not accepting any federal funding. The Indians have learned their lesson, whatever the government promised, they always take back. There is also some controversy regarding this monument as the carving of a mountain goes against the Indian way, and some feel the family is getting rich off of their ancestors. The memorial is also supposed to become a satellite campus for the University of South Dakota and has started a Summer Scholarship Program. I am not sure we would have paid the money to see this if it were not part of the tour.

Next we headed back for our Chuckwagon Dinner of BBQ beef, BBQ chicken, Baked potato, beans, applesauce, biscuit, and spice cake served on a tin plate cafeteria style and accompanied by a tin cup filled with lemonade or iced tea. It was pretty good and filling. After we cleaned up our own dishes and returned to our seats we were entertained with a great band. They played a montage of many different styles of music and their lead guitarist was young and amazing. We enjoyed the show and would recommend the tour!!!!
One day we went into downtown Rapid City and did the walking President’s tour. Check out the ones we found:

Our last day we visited Bear Country.  Took a hundred pictures of animals, but these are the best of the bears.  It was a great way to get up close and personal with the bears.  Unfortunately it won’t let me upload any videos, but had a cute video of two bears fighting.

 

Answer to the Dead Man’s hand:  2 Pair Aces and Eights!!  Did you get it right??