Black Hills South Dakota

Well here it is. The last installment of pix. The rain was still pounding in Denver so we decided to move on.

We still drove through a fair bit of rain. It finally let up when we reached Wyoming. Met a couple of bikers at a rest stop that had traveled to the west coast from Pennsylvania. They'd been in the rain for a couple of days as well.

We took a highway off the beaten path and needed to make a pit stop. When you're off the interstate you have to rely on small towns you meet along the way. Well we came across a street of a town, but it had a bar. Guy running it was very friendly, but unfortunately the "rest rooms" weren't working. So we had to use some porta potties outside.
It was small town enough to allow people to have their beers to go...lol.

The last rest stop we hit before leaving Wyoming had all kinds of signs touting it's ecological and environmental foresight. Basically it was an outhouse with no running water. Big whoop...

Reached Hot Springs and were checked in by late afternoon. Had supper and drove around a bit.

We decided to move on the next day and get to Rapid City for a couple of nights.

On the way there we went through Wind Cave National Park, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and a neat little town called Keystone. Had supper there and looked around the numerous shops. Very tourist freindly.
We've already decided that the Black Hills is a place where one could spend a few days looking around.
At Mt Rushmore, we took a path that was used during the filming of National Treasure 2. It's quite an amazing story, the carving of the heads that is.
Did I mention the donkeys? Seems that along the wildlife loop you run into this group of donkeys/burros that know you have food. So they kinda block the road and come walking up to your window. It was kinda cool.

After a day of sightseeing we headed for our hotel in Rapid City. Holiday Inn Express. Unfortunately, we went to the wrong one at first. There are 3 of them. The next one didn't have our name either. Upon further review, we realized they had us in as Beters instead of Peters.
Once we had that straightened out it was all good.

Next day we headed off to Deadwood. I'd been there back in 1980. It's quite different. Almost every shop is a Casino. Apparently, it's how they funded the refurbishing of the town in 1993.

We did find a museum that had the history of Deadwood, as well as, the story of Wild Bill Hickock who was shot and killed in the #10 Saloon in Deadwood.

From there we went to the Crystal Caves. There's several to choose from, Rushmore Caves, Wind Caves etc. This one was the least strenuous. Believe me it was strenuous enough. Very interesting though. We didn't realize the extent of the series of caves in the Black Hills and that they dated back thousands of years.

Aug 19: Checked out and headed for Fargo. On I90 we started to notice, about every half mile, signs about a place called Wall Drug. Soooo, we decided to check it out. Glad we did! Nice little place, family friendly, lots of places to eat and shops to check out.

We hit Fargo by evening. Found a Select Inn and again got the Senior Rate. Did breakfast at a Denny's in the morning and the waitress suggested we check out the Burlington Coat Factory. Wow, what a store! Lots of stuff and in BIG sizes. Picked up some stuff for Jax and Alex then headed home.

No problem at the border. We were home by 4:30. Still had a couple of days to unwind before going back to work.

Great trip! Figured out some things we'd do differently, but isn't that always the case?

As per usual, if you want to see more pix, click on the title of this chapter.

Thanks for coming along....