Spearfish and Devils

The first picture looks like an ordinary breakfast buffet line, but it has a story. We spent the night in the Franklin Hotel, not our best overnight accommodations because it was old, creaky, and the toilet intermittently ran during the night. But hey, it’s historic! We did get a coupon for half off their Sunday brunch at the hotel’s sister location just across the street. It was a pretty good brunch buffet, so I took a picture of the line. Phillip went back a second time for the gooey caramel rolls they had, as I had gotten one and it was delicious. If you note in the picture, the plates are in stacks near the food station. They are on those spring-loaded stands that push them up as one plate is taken off. Apparently, just before Phillip got his plate for the caramel roll, a worker had overloaded the stand with plates. Phillip said the stack was fairly high and slightly leaning when he took the top plate. As soon as he lifted it his plate off, the stack raised, but because of the tilt, the plates started falling. Remember, it was spring-loaded. The stack just kept feeding out plates, sending them crashing to the floor. About thirty plates bit the dust. From our table, I could see the plates break on the floor, but didn’t realize that Phillip had started the cascade until he came back with his roll. I didn’t want to walk over and take a picture, as it took the workers several minutes to sweep up the plate pieces that had basically covered the floor of the serving area. Can’t take Phillip anywhere, right?

We left Deadwood and stopped in the next town, Lead, to visit a mining museum; however, I forgot it was Sunday morning and the museum didn’t open till noon. We contented ourselves with examining the outside displays before proceeding. The clerk at the woodcarving shop had recommended driving the Spearfish Scenic Byway. She had been right about the Purple Pie Shop, so I amended our route to take the byway. Just as we got on it, we had to come to a complete stop in the road. A doe walked in front of us then waited on the side, looking back across the road. We knew what that meant, and sure enough, these two scampered out and crossed the road to mama.

The Spearfish Byway took us thru more of the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was on the lookout for elk and mountain goats. We did see more deer, usually in the meadows at the base of the mountains. The road followed a stream thru canyons, meandering basically northwest toward the town of Spearfish. No air conditioner needed in the SUV, as the outside temperature remained probably in the low 70s. The traffic was light, although there were other cars on the road. We stopped at some of the overlooks and they were never too crowded.

About half-way along the byway, we saw a sign for Roughneck Falls and a Dances with Wolves filming location. We turned off actually to see the Dances with Wolves location, 3.2 miles down a side road. The side road turned into a packed gravel road, then into a bumpy rutted dirt road, and I told Phillip we could turn around because I could identify which scenes were shot in the area (the final scenes in the mountain snow when the soldiers are chasing the tribe). On our way back out, we stopped at Roughneck Falls and were really glad we did. A boardwalk lead to a viewing area at the top of the falls and then down the hill to the bottom of the falls. The recent rains provided a good flow of water over the falls.  It was a nice little hike back up from the bottom of the falls, but it did prepare us for our next stop at Devils Tower.

Devils Tower is a geological formation of really hard rock that juts up from the land. There are three theories about how it was formed, but they all say it is hardened lava and that the land around it eroded over millions of years, leaving the tower. It is quite fascinating in the closer views. Columns of rock fall off the face, leaving vertical fissures as if some giant had jack-hammered sections away. We walked the Tower Trail, 1.3 miles and not level, around the base of the tower. The trail took us near the granite beds on one side and out in the woods on other sides. It was a nice hike because about 95% was in the shade of the pine trees, even if it was up and down enough to stretch my hamstrings occasionally.

We left Devils Tower and headed south in Wyoming. I’ve mentioned the coal train cars we saw in another state. Today we saw the coal mines. We only drove close enough to one to get a picture, but saw the signs and trucks for several others. Along Highway 59, railroad tracks paralleled the road. Mile long trains full of coal headed south. Empty coal cars headed north. That was a constant sight along this 100 mile stretch of road. We also noticed a lot of oil rigs in the area. The few small towns we passed thru were dotted with new looking modular homes, probably for the oil field and coal field workers of the area.

My final picture of the day shows how much the terrain had changed from the views in the Black Hills. Eastern Wyoming does not get enough rain to have alfalfa fields or corn fields. It is mostly native grasses and those nasty blue-ish gray sticker bushes that are worse than mesquite. We occasionally saw sheep and antelope. We rarely even saw cows. Or people. If I had to pick a place to live, this area would be very low on my list. Interesting to drive thru, but we were not inclined to stop and get out, as there really was nothing for miles and miles. Our stop for the night, in Douglas, Wyoming, has greener views than the land we drove thru. We passed some irrigated bottom land just north of town, and it was nice. Our hotel, a new Sleep Inn, has a pool in which we enjoyed a nice swim to end the day.

Purple Pie and the Midnight Star

We left Rapid City to head south again, but then west toward Deadwood, basically making a big loop around the area we covered yesterday. Driving out of town, we stopped again at Fort Hays. Phillip had really liked the tin plates and learned ;last night that they were for sale. The tinsmith (who was also the variety show’s comedian) had already started making tin plates for the tour bus patrons who leave from Fort Hays for Rushmore tours. He showed Phillip hoe he makes the plates from round sheets of tin, even allowing Phillip to shape a plate. We bought a plate embossed with a wold and a tin cup for the ranch, then continued on our drive.

We re-drove a segment of Wildlife Loop Road and what did we see… buffalo! Not the herd today, but several lone male buffalo walking near the road. We also saw a small herd of antelope. My research material indicated we might find elk in Wind Cave National Forest, but all we saw were elk tracks!

In the town of Custer, we stopped at the National Woodcarving Museum. We didn’t actually go thru the museum, but we did spend some time in its gift shop. I asked the clerk for a lunch recommendation, and she suggested the Purple Pie Shop, saying their chicken pot pie was delicious. That sounded really good to us, and the restaurant was certainly easy to find, as it was painted purple, A TCU shade of purple. And the shop clerk had been right, the pot pie was delicious, chunks of real chicken in a tasty gravy with a flaky, not soggy, bottom crust. Even though I’m not a big dessert eater, I had to have the raspberry rhubarb jalapeno pie. Not too sweet and with a kick. It gave me some ideas for the jams that I make during my garden year.

North of Custer on Hwy 385 is the turn-off for the Crazy Horse Memorial. Most of the reviewers were not impressed with the operation of the Memorial, calling it over-priced and too commercial. It is a private, not park service operation. So, we did as suggested, took pictures as we drove by. With a zoom lens and high resolution, I got the same picture that I’ve seen on postcards.

Hill City was our next stop. Phillip and I both like metal art and I can always use more for the garden and flower beds at the ranch. What should we see but metal art on the main street of Hill City. The store had other amusements for its customers, including a jail cell! And yes, I bought a piece of metal art for my garden.

 

We had seen advertisements for rhubarb wine, made at a winery just north of Hill City, so we stopped to buy a bottle. I would have done their free wine tasting, but as you might imagine for a free wine tasting of five wines, the lines were long. Phillip actually rushed to take this picture of me as a storm was approaching. We managed to get back to the SUV and started before the rain came. We had a fifteen second period of pea-sized hail, but this weather system was mainly just rain and we soon drove out of it. The benefit of rain storms: clean windshield as the bugs are washed away.

The land on the way to Deadwood is still part of the Black Hills National Forest, same as the Mount Rushmore area. The land is so named because the pine trees are so dense and dark, they seem black from a distance. The temperature is lower than we felt as we drove thru other states, as the elevation, the shade from the trees that overhang the road, and the rain have cooled the air. The area is quite beautiful, not exotic and strange like the Badlands, just beautiful.

We stopped at Pactola Lake, not because it was part of my itinerary, but because it looked pretty set among the mountains and had a pull-off and walk to a small cliff for views of the lake. While taking lake pictures, I saw this guy. My first thought was “rat squirrel,” as he’s about ¼ the size of Texas squirrels. Then, I noticed his fat cheeks and realized it could be Alvin, Theodore, or Simon. Well, not Simon, he didn’t have glasses on. Yes, it is a chipmunk.

Deadwood was our next and final stop of the day. We parked and walked around the main street. All the buildings in Deadwood are required to be built or renovated in the style of the 1880s. The State of Wyoming gambling as follows: on Indian reservations, up to 10 video gaming terminals in any business, and in the entire city of Deadwood. We played $2 blackjack in the Midnight Star casino. We got free drinks and did not have to pay to play like we do at the Oklahoma casinos. Kevin Costner is part owner of the Midnight Star and has decorated the casino with glass display cases containing costumes and clothing from his movies. We also ate dinner, pretty good Reuben sandwiches, in the sports bar of the Midnight Star. Our hotel for the night, The Franklin, also had a casino. It is one of those grand old hotels with carpet covered stairways and heavy wood furnishings.

Presidents, Buffalo, and Needles

After spending the night in Rapid City, South Dakota, Phillip and I headed south toward Keystone and Mount Rushmore. En route, just south of Rapid City, we stopped at Fort Hays, a historic site that also had props used in the movie Dances with Wolves. We decided make reservations for the fort’s chuckwagon dinner and show this evening since I planned for us to return to Rapid City for the night. On to Keystone, and a few miles further: Mount Rushmore. The main reason for this trip. It was magnificent. We walked thru every display, trail and museum on the site. The cost was certainly reasonable for the visit, only $11 to park with no other admission fee. And no pesky vendors, either.

We decided to get the audio tour headsets and were glad that we did, as we learned the entire story of the building of the monument. Originally, only George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were to be there, but Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt were added. Roosevelt was actually a controversial selection in 1927, as it hadn’t been very long since he had left the Presidency. However, he was included because he started the national park system and championed all things nature.

The audio tour also gave us interesting facts such as that Thomas Jefferson was originally planned to be on the other side of Washington, but a crack in the granite as they were creating his statue, so they dynamited him away and put him in a different location. Also, Bourland, the creator of the monument, came up with the idea to use a column of granite for the pupils of the presidents’ eyes. This gave the eyes shadows and depth and made it seem like the eyes moved as the sun and shadows moved across the faces.

We left Mount Rushmore at about 11 am, just as the crowds were really arriving. Custer State Park is just a few miles from Mount Rushmore and we took the three main scenic roads of this state park, Iron Mountain Road, Wildlife Loop Road, and Needles Highway. We noticed a traffic back-up as we were driving in the park, and sure enough, a herd of buffalo was crossing the road. We stopped before the back-up and were able to see them across the field. Here are some of our buffalo pictures, and yes, I was about twenty feet (behind a car hood) when I took one of the pictures:

We continued on thru the park after our buffalo sighting, Seeing other critters including

deer, more prairie dogs, and antelope. Portions of the park are fields of grass, but other portions are in the mountains. We were driving on some roads that made me clutch the console and lean toward Phillip. I knew he wasn’t going to drive us over a cliff, but the roads, if not going thru fields, were frequently quite narrow as they twisted around the mountain sides. The scenery and rock formations, however were beautiful.

 

The most harrowing section of the park drive was the one on Needles Highway. Phillip would laugh at me as I gasped, then held my breath on some of the turns that did not have guardrails – and that was actually most of them! We came across several one lane tunnels, with signs advising the cars to sound their horns before proceeding very slowly. The summit of this highway had a formation called the Eye of the Needle and the longest one-lane tunnel of them all.

The final road we took in Custer State Park put us back in the town of Keystone. I’d read

about the gold mines in the area, so we took a mine tour of the actual Big Thunder Gold Mine. After being dug for 32 years, it has been out of operation for decades as a gold mine, and wasn’t very successful of a mine when it was dug, but it was authentic. Cool and damp as you might expect a long cave built into the mountain would be. The average height of the miners a century ago was 5’2”. Even I had to duck in places to get under the bracing. After the mine tour, Phillip panned for gold at Black Thunder. I’ll just show you two pictures and you can see that we did not make our fortune, or even pay for a postcard stamp with the gold he got!

 

After Big Thunder, we headed back north to Fort Hays for our dinner and show. Before dinner, we had plenty of time to walk around Fort Hays. Two of their buildings had been used as sets for scenes in Dancing with Wolves. Early in the movie, Kevin Costner’s character got his orders from his commander. The room which was used was persevered for folks to walk thru, full of stills from the movie.

For the chuckwagon dinner, we went into a brick-floored

room with picnic tables end-to-end that could seat 30 people on each side. We then filed by row thru the serving line, where we were provided tin plates for our beef or chicken, sides, biscuit, and dessert. Lemonade was served in tin cups to the approximately 300 people. The food was tasty, and when everyone had finished, the variety show started, a mix of country music and a comedian. It was OK, and several of the musicians did a fine job; however, those picnic tables did not make comfortable seating for the show. We actually left before it was over and headed back to Rapid City to find another hotel.

 

The Badlands are Great Lands!

After breakfast at our hotel, we only drove 100 feet before my first picture of the day. This deer, made of car parts and rusty tools, perched on a squashed car in front of the gas station near the hotel. While Phillip got gas, I scampered across the parking lot to get my pictures. I found out about the car parts deer during my research for the trip when I came across the website “Roadside America.” If you’re heading somewhere and want to find small, quirky attractions worth a drive by, Roadside America is a good source. Another good source for information about attractions near a destination is the website "Trip Advisor."

Phillip and I continued west toward the Badlands, watching for more interesting sites. We’ve frequently seen fairly large bee hive clusters like these as we’ve driven in South Dakota, more than we’ve noticed in the other states. We would expect with all the alfalfa fields that bees would be plentiful here, but I didn’t realize until I checked that South Dakota is the third leading state in the country in honey production. FYI, North Dakota is the #1 state for honey production. We saw these hives as we drove to the Minuteman Missile visitors’ center. From the early 1960s until 1991, South Dakota was home to 150 missile silos, each armed with a missile pointed at the Soviet Union. The next available tour of the control center museum wasn’t for over two hours, so we continued on.

About three miles south, we came across the Prairie Homestead. It is a preserved actual

homestead as settled originally in 1909. During 1900 thru 1913, a lot of this area was homestead by settlers who got 160 acres for $18. This was one of the last areas subject to homesteading, and probably one of the least successful in the country. 90% of the homesteaders here abandoned the area after two years or less. The winters were very harsh on the ill-prepared settlers. The people who settled at the site we visited, however, were successful. In 1949, the last son moved to California and the place ended up abandoned. It was still in good shape, though, when the preservationists came, so it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and preserved.

The Prairie Homestead has several buildings, including the original sod home with an addition from about 1915, a deserted claim shack that the homesteader took apart and rebuilt to be the family living room. The site had a cave dug into the hill that served as a refrigerator in the summer and a place to keep food and milk from freezing in the winter. The folks who run the Prairie Homestead have a pony and goats on site and chickens in the original chicken coop. Prairie dogs, probably descendants of the same prairie dogs that were a nuisance to the homesteaders, live in their burrows around the site.

About 8 miles south of the Prairie Homestead, we paid our national park fee and entered the Badlands National Park area. Spectacular is the word to describe the Badlands. It is the most amazing site we’ve seen on our trip. I’m going to just put the pictures in and continue with the narrative after, because the pictures are better than my words.

We stopped at numerous overlooks to take pictures; however, we walked a lot at the location called the Door Trail. The Badlands were formed by water erosion that exposed layers in the rock. Imagine being a settler in a wagon, making your way across the prairie, and coming upon 244,000 acres of this!

 

After spending several hours in the Badlands, we headed for the town of Wall and ate lunch at Wall Drug. Wall Drug is no longer just a drugstore, it is a multi-block destination. Phillip and I both had a buffalo burger, then we walked around the Wall Drug attractions. I’m not actually driving a wagon, it’s just a display on which tourists like us could sit and take pictures. We didn’t buy any souvenirs here, but we did notice that the petrified wood pieces on sale here cost three times what we paid for them yesterday at the Petrified Garden. Wall Drug had stuffed bison, a large animated dinosaur, a fake mine trail, and other activities for kids.

Wall Drug was very crowded, so we were happy to get away. To avoid any more crowds, I

navigated us to the west Sage Rim Road of the Badlands, instead of heading west on the interstate freeway. I figured not many people would use that road as it was longer and was the “‘scenic route.”  Yes it was scenic and yes, we only saw about four cars in the forty miles of the road. Also, the pavement ended about eight or so miles in. Our baby was used to Jack County gravel roads, so she did just fine. The gravel road was packed, dry, and wide.

In addition to more views of the Badlands, our scenic route also yielded the following sights.

We returned to a paved road and made our way to Rapid City, where we were finally able to get a new air filter for the SUV. The oil change people in Kansas had shown us that we needed a new one, but no auto parts store along our route (and we stopped at several) had one in stock for the Mitsubishi. Not a popular make of car here, I guess. It was probably for the best that it was after the thirty miles of dusty gravel that we found the new filter. We initially planned to spend the night in Wall, but the crowds there drove us on the Rapid City to spend the night.