Wild Bill Pickup

One of the attractions of Deadwood are the re-enactments they do of Wild Bill Hickok's murder and the trial of Jack McCall, the man who shot him. There are loads of people dressed in period clothing walking up and down the street, ready with a smile to have their picture taken with you.

Kathie and I had been walking up and down the main street of Deadwood and had stopped to eat some ice cream. We were sitting on a bench outside the shop when along came one of the men dressed in costume.

He walked up to us and said hello. I asked if he was Jack McCall and he smiled and said, "No ma'am. I'm Wild Bill Hickok." He told us about the re-enactments, what time they started and where they would be. According to Kathie, he was flirting with me. You can read her account of the conversation here. She gave me a hard time about it the rest of the day! :)

If you could see beyond his really bad, long hair wig and period clothing, he was a pretty good looking guy. I mean hey, he said I was purdy and called me love. What more could a girl want?!? :)


For some strange reason, I didn't have my camera with me when all this happened. So, the picture above is from a different day.

This one's for you, Stacey. He's no Horatio, but...

This is my 100th post!

Back to The Blackhills

Wednesday morning we left The Badlands and headed back to The Blackhills; Deadwood to be exact.

Kathie needed to get some work done on her grant, so I put $20 in the tank and went for a drive. I had read in one of our (many!!) brochures that there was a scenic drive close to Deadwood, so I found a map, charted my course and set off.

You may notice that most of the pictures are a little "fuzzy." No, my camera wasn't acting up. It was actually raining quite heavily and the clouds were pretty low. Needless to say, I was a bit damp when I got back to the kabin (KOA spelling!).

Below is a map of the drive I took. Even from a topographical map I could tell it was going to be a long and winding road. I left from Deadwood and made my way to Spearfish and then backtracked. It was about two hours there and back.



This is Highway 85 just south of Lead. Even on the big roads, the view is stunning!



The scenic road "started" once I turned onto SR 14A at Cheyenne Corner. The map doesn't show it because it's just that, a corner with a small convenience store.


I never did see a sign giving the name of this river. The road basically followed it all the way to Spearfish. All of the pics below are of the same river.

The massive cliffs and gorgeous pine trees were my only company. They were quite friendly and allowed me to take their picture quite a number of times.

Bridal Veil Falls - it's about halfway between Cheyenne Corner and Spearfish. There's a good size shoulder area here where you can park. Had it not been pooring rain, I would have ventured across the street and hiked about for a bit to get different angles of the falls.

The Badlands

Monday morning we left The Blackhills/Mount Rushmore area and headed east to The Badlands. It's only a few hours away and we made it by early afternoon, but both of us were exhausted and we spent Monday doing absolutely nothing. Unless you count napping and blogging as something.

I don't sleep well in places other than my own bed and according to Kathie, I snore really loud, so neither of us got much sleep the first two nights. I don't know if she's telling the truth or not since I've never heard myself snore!! We stopped at the Wal-Mart on the way to The Badlands and she bought earplugs! Problem solved for her!

Tuesday we were up and on our way to The Badlands. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard of The Badlands before and had this vague idea that it was kinda like the Grand Canyon meets Death Valley. Well, it is kinda like The Grand Canyon, but instead of a river slicing through it, The Badlands were once covered by an inland sea. This inland sea eroded The Blackhills and the sediment from this settled in the area. As the sea receded, the water eroded the sediment left behind into what can be seen today.

There you go, my unscientific explanation of how this beautiful landscape came to be. The pictures may portray it as a stark and barren world, but take my word for it, it was teeming with life.
Yep, that's me on the edge of the abyss!

I think these were my favorite. They were this golden yellow on the bottom, vibrant red in the middle and this dark ash grey on the top. Absolutely gorgeous!!

We had an awesome thunderstorm coming in from the west. We managed to miss the rain, but were treated to a lovely showing of lightening and thunder.

Here's some of the life I was telling you about. I was lucky I even saw this guy. The photo makes it seem like he was pretty close, when in reality he was at least 300 yards away. Thank goodness for the zoom on my camera! I have a picture of him without the zoom that gives a better perspective, but I didn't want to send you guys into a picture overdose.

The prairie dogs were everywhere there was a flat grassy area. One of them "barked" at us when she thought we had strayed a little too close to her den. It was a funny little high-pitched chihuahua sounding bark.

We also saw rabbits and other small rodents, but they were too quick for pics. There were signs everywhere warning us of rattlesnakes. Thankfully we didn't see any of those!!

The Badlands National Park

Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD

This was a pretty cool site. Back in 1974 a man by the name of Phil Anderson bought the land and was preparing to build houses on it, when earth moving equipment unearthed what later was discovered to be mammoth teeth.

Since then a total of 55 mammoths have been found in this one area. Scientists believe it was a huge local watering hole created by a sink hole in the land. Bad thing about it were the steep sides; mammoths would fall in, but then were unable to climb back out. As a funny side note, all of the mammoths found were males. Hmmmm....

Visit the Mammoth Site website for more information and history.

Upper right corner is a skull with both tusks. Bottom left are leg bones, spine and ribs.


This is the most complete skeleton they've found so far. Starting at the bottom of the picture are the back legs, then the pelvis, spine, ribs, front legs and the head is underneath the front portion of the body.

Where The Deer and Antelope Play

Sunday was also spent driving through some of the most gorgeous country. A lot of our driving that day took us through Custer State Park where we were treated to tons of wildlife.


Most of what we saw were antelopes; tons and tons of antelope!

We finally happened upon deer. If you look closely you can see that the doe has a collar on. They must be doing conservation studies in the park.

Last, but not least, we saw buffalo. Not very many, but oddly enough, most of the ones we saw were just sitting or standing along the side of the road by themselves. After this guy crossed the road and we could pass, it hit me that I should have taken video of it. As we came upon him, he was walking across the road to the right. As we stopped to take the pic, he decided that the other side of the road was where he wanted to be. It was his road and he didn't care who had to stop while he made up his mind!!

Crazy Horse

Sunday we went to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It was way more interesting than I had thought it would be. I've known about it for years and knew that it's what could be called the neverending sculpture. So I wasn't really sure why I wanted to visit a place that looked like it hadn't changed in 20 years.

Well, lets just say, a lot has been accomplished. The sculpture was started in 1948 and in the museum they have pictures throughout the decades of the work that's been done. When you see the pics, it's very clear just how much has been done.

When all is said and done, the sculpture will be 641ft long by 563ft high. It is massive!! To give you a visual of just how big that is, Mount Rushmore would easily fit in the area just behind Crazy Horse's face.

This is a scale model inside the museum.

Mount Rushmore

Or as I like to call it, Rount Mushmore. I've said it twice now, so Rount Mushmore it is. I was dead tired yesterday when we went, and my brain doesn't function that well on a full nights sleep!

This pic was taken just around the corner from Mount Rushmore. There's a break in the trees as you come around and right there in front of you is George Washington's profile! It was too stinking cool!!!

They have an evening show where the Ranger gives a twenty minute speech on why these four presidents were chosen and what they stand for in American History.

George Washington - Birth: Revolutionary War General

Thomas Jefferson - Expansion: Louisiana Purchase

Abraham Lincoln - Preservation: Saved the Union during the Civil War

Teddy Roosevelt - Development: Conservation of natural wonders

They then show a 20 minute video done by the Discovery Channel about Mount Rushmore and once it's good and dark, they begin the lighting ceremony. It's really pretty cool. I got it on video, but it's pretty grainy. In real life it was awesome. It's so dark outside, but then slowly the monument lights up.

It was really cool! I highly recommend making the trip here just to see it!