In the Black Hills and Custer Country

We drove into Rapid City, South Dakota and stayed at the Happy Holiday campground which was very crowded and tight. However it was just on the way to all the attractions in the Black Hills.

One day we went to Deadwood to wander like the tourists we are. The town is just about one large casino with a few historic areas interspersed among them. We drove through town and toured the Adams museum which had historic items and items from the Deadwood series.

Then we took a bus tour through the Mt. Moriah cemetery and saw the graves of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock.

On the way out of town we stopped at another museum which was full of guns, wagons, stagecoaches and Indian artifacts. There was a young lady there who really seemed to love her job and loved to talk. She gave us lots of other thing to see in the Black Hills.

After leaving Deadwood, we stopped at the Tatanka Heritage site which was built by Kevin Costner. He’s intended to build a hotel resort but it fizzled for lack of funding so he landscaped the site for the buffalo bronzes he had had made. They were amazing but we couldn’t stay too long because of the rain and lightning. It rained most afternoons of our stay. Some were full fledged thunderstorms but it kept it cooler. Sorry, Melissa, we didn't go to the movie prop where Kevin Costner stood this time. Remember that?

On Tuesday, we took the black hills 1880s train from Keystone to Hill City. About a 3 hour ride it reminded me of the Rusk-Palestine Texas Railroad. It chugged through woods and past nice vacation homes. It was a fun trip.

Of course, we could not be there without seeing Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. The national park has contracted vendors to run the parking and it was $10 to park which seemed pretty unreasonable.

The last day we were there we loaded up the dogs to drive to Custer State Park and the wildlife loop. The dogs just didn’t know what to make of the buffalo, one of which came right past the car. There were wild burros and people stopped in the middle of the road and got out to pet them. Look at this picture of a buffalo taken just outside my car door! I wasn't sure but that we might have an extra "big dog" with us before it was over.

We stopped at the Custer County museum and it had some really nice exhibits.
The final day of our stay we went into Rapid City and saw the Journey Museum which had many Indian artifacts. We met a really nice couple, headed the same way we are, named Mike and Joanne Capo. We went into Rapid City together and enjoyed Pizza Hut for the first time in a while. Then, we also went to the Prairie’s Edge store which is an outlook for Native American crafts. It had three stories full of amazing art, beadwork and jewelry. The one piece that just amazed Chuck and I was this paper sculpture of a buffalo jump. The detail was mindboggling and so was the price.

Our next stop is Ft. Abraham Lincoln near Mandan and Bismark North Dakota. There we will participate in their living history event and are really looking forward to it.