As promised, here are the details of day 4 of our journey. We left Mitchell, SD around 7 AM CDT and headed west on I-90. The scenery was still pretty flat but interesting. As we approached the Missouri River, the road just seemed to end as we looked out ahead. When we got to the river, the road dropped sharply down to the river crossing. Once across the river, it was like we had suddenly just dropped into a completely different geography (well, we actually had). The land had many more features left by the glaciers. Instead of the flat to rolling hills we had been seeing, we were now seeing sudden outcroppings that just appeared out of nowhere. The road still tended to be arrow straight, but it was much more hilly.
We had rented a set of information CDs when we stopped at the information center upon entering South Dakota. As we were listening to the description of the area west of Mitchell, there was a discussion of the Badlands and a description of the loop road that goes through them. Mary looked at the map and said it would be something we could do. It was not on our itinerary, but we decided to do it. What a great decision! The Badlands just suddenly pop up out of the landscape. The loop road is through the national park, so I got my first opportunity to use my old folks pass. The views of the rock features were fantastic. I have included several pictures in my Picassa album, but it is hard to describe the variety and beauty of the area.
We saw our first prairie dogs in the Badlands park. We stopped at a spot where there was a huge number of mounds and lots of the little critters cavorting about. They are fun to watch.
After leaving the park, we continued up the road back to I-90 and Wall, SD home of the world famous Wall Drug Store. Wall Drug Store is an example of good old American marketing amazement. It grew from a little stop along the original dirt road out in the middle of nowhere to a modern day tourist attraction that keeps something like 1/3 of the people in the town employed. The "drug store" is nearly a block long and actually consists of a number of adjoining shops and places to eat. The crowds were incredible. It's one of those places that is cheesy, but you just have to visit. It was actually a lot of fun. Mary and Sheila shopped to their hearts content and both bought some nice jewelry (earrings). I looked for a book I've been trying to find about life in the area during the early 19th century. The book was not available there, so I didn't buy anything. We had lunch there (see Sheila with her ice cream) before heading on west.
From Wall we continued west on I-90 to Rapid City. From there we headed south on a scenic route to Mount Rushmore. The landscape by then was quite hilly since we were well into the Black Hills. It was a very picturesque drive. As we got closer to Mt. Rushmore we got to a point where we could begin to see it in the distance from the road. It was awesome! When we got to the park itself, we walked to the viewing area and took a zillion pictures (samples on the Picassa web site). We brought the spotting scope with us and discovered that we didn't really need it. It was interesting to use it to get a close look at the details of the sculpture, though.
From Mt. Rushmore we continued on the scenic road and drove through Custer State Park. One of the interesting features of the scenic drive was the "pig tail" bridges. The are called that because the road does a complete loop and crosses over itself on a bridge. They put these in at a couple of spots instead of switch backs to handle large changes in elevation of the road. There were also a number of short and narrow (single lane) tunnels along the road. Custer State Park contains a number of buffalo, but we never did see any. We did see "sign" where they had crossed the road. We also saw a small group of wild donkeys (burros). It was very much like Asategue Island used to be where they just wandered out on to the road and begged food from the passing cars. We just continued on past them. We had places to go and things to see.
After leaving Custer State Park, we continued on to the Crazy Horse Monument. The monument was commissioned in 1947 to memorialize Chief Crazy Horse who led a contingent that did battle at Little Big Horn. Like the faces on Mt. Rushmore, the monument is being carved out of a mountain. However, it is considerably larger than Mt. Rushmore and is also a three dimensional carving. After 50 years of work, the head has made its appearance and Crazy Horse's face is finished. Some of the outline of the horse he is sitting on have been "drawn" on the mountain side so the observer can get an idea of where things will be. It is safe to say that it will likely require another 50 years or more to complete. It was quite an impressive sight, though.
From Crazy Horse we went to Deadwood -- our destination for the end of the day. We arrived there around 6 PM MDT (12 hours after we left Mitchell) and got checked into the hotel. By then we were all pretty tired and hungry. We ate at a place called the Deadwood Social Club which had a very good menu. I had a buffalo tenderloin steak which was very well prepared and excellent. We all had cheese cake for desert then groaned our way back to the hotel. Everything in Deadwood is on Main Street. It is a national historic landmark. Gold was first discovered in the Black Hills near there and the town quickly appeared in Deadwood gulch. One of the most famous incidents in the town was the murder of Wild Bill Hickok who had come to the town to help the gold miners spend their money. Besides him, Calamity Jane was also a frequent resident of the town and also died there. The town is now the only gambling town in the state (other casinos are on reservations) and every store front in the town has a casino associated with it. The Hampton Inn is no different, and the three of us went down to try out the slots. Each of us put $20 dollars in and Sheila lost hers first. I came in second lasting about half an hour. Mary just kept on going. She got down to about $3, then recouped back to around $19. At that point Sheila had gone back to the room and Mary and I were practically falling asleep, so she cashed out. It was kind of fun (mostly for Mary), but not something I would care to do much.
That pretty much sums up the busiest day so far on the trip. It was very long and tiring, but we would all do it again in a heart beat. It was a fantastic day in which we all saw something we really looked forward to and will always remember. Since it is now after midnight on the 15th, I will not get my entry for day 5 done tonight. This was another fantastic day, and I will post the details tomorrow morning or after we arrive at our destination tomorrow night. I have uploaded lots of pictures to Picassa and have broken them up by location so they are easier to follow. I continue to take lots of pictures, but try to just upload the best as a sampling. Check out my albums there.
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