South Dakota and a little bit of Wyoming

South Dakota and Wyoming

On our way to Spearfish in South Dakota we drove through the North East corner of Wyoming and saw signs for Devil’s Tower, not realizing that this was the ‘backdrop’ for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” until we were reminded and looked it up on the internet, obviously we had to take a drive there once we were hooked up in Chris Campground, our home for 2 weeks.

After a day of relaxing and settling in we took a drive up Spearfish Canyon to see if we could find the waterfalls in the canyon, the first was really easy – Bridal Falls, the second, Roughlock Falls, took us a little off road however both were really spectacular – nowhere near the Niagara scale, but still wonderful to see and no hiking this time. We circled back through Deadwood, which is so commercialized we didn’t even stop and a little town called Lead, the locals pronounce ‘Leed’, maybe they don’t like guns and the history of the area.

A few days later we took a trip to Rapid City and down to Bear Country USA Wildlife Park, a park that you can drive through among the animals – just keep your windows closed, they even let Rusty stay in the car. So we drove through areas with Reindeer, Bears, Sheep, Elk and Mountain Lions among others, all in their own enclosures, safe from each other.

We had stopped at a Jimmy Johns gourmet sandwich store on the way so sat in the car and had lunch, Rusty had a snack too. Back through Rapid City and Sturgis to the camp ground, we we’re so lucky to miss the Sturgis Bike Rally – this year was the 75th annual get together for bikers – they were expecting 1.3 million attendees a week or so after we were leaving. Back in Spearfish we saw dozens of Chevy Corvettes – they were having a rally – they were everywhere, the hotel parking lots were full of them.

A few days later we planned a tour around the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore – a full day, about 200 miles round trip over some really interesting roads, especially Iron Mountain Road.

Crazy Horse Memorial is quite amazing, a sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, was invited by Henry Standing Bear, an Oglala Lakota Chief, to create a memorial remembering all North American Indians. Korczak was also involved in the creation of Mount Rushmore. The memorial was started in 1947 with the first blasting in 1948, as yet there are no projected completion dates.

On to Custer State Park and the herds of Bison, apparently herds totalling over 1,450 roam these grasslands. We drove for quite a while and saw one sole, lonely male, thinking this is a big scam, where are all these buffalo/bison, we soon found the herd – in really close proximity – just across the road from us and on both sides of the road, truly an amazing sight when you realize these animals used to roam in the tens of thousands across these areas.

We decided to take the Iron Mountain Road to Mount Rushmore, supposedly a really ‘interesting’ windy road – it was all of that and a whole lot more. There are 3 tunnels carved through the rock that you need to drive through, nice twisty roads that also have switchbacks and roads that loop under or over the one you just travelled on – fun!!! And when you come out of one of these tunnels and you are presented with Mount Rushmore in the distance – quite breath-taking and glorious. There isn’t a whole lot you can say about Mount Rushmore except that it is monumental and historic, and a once in a life time chance to gaze at this magnificent sculpture.

Not a lot else happened in South Dakota so back to Wyoming and Devils Tower. We decided to take a different route back through Wyoming than the one we took to South Dakota from Montana and ended up in a small town called Sundance. That’s where we came across a bronze statue depicting Sundance Kid of the ‘Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy’ and the Wild Bunch fame. The story goes that Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was arrested and jailed for 18 months for stealing a horse and gun from a ranch in Sundance and adopted the Sundance Kid name while he was in jail, hence the bronze in Sundance Town Centre.

We left Sundance and headed for the tower, we saw glimpses of the tower when we were still miles away – a huge rock seeming to push out of the surrounding earth, amazing even from a distance, and then we were at the base of it – HUGE towering strange looking rock rising nearly 1,300 feet – it was declared a National Monument in 1906 by President Roosevelt.

Next on to Nebraska and Iowa.

2 Comments on “South Dakota and a little bit of Wyoming

  1. Looking forward to reading about Nebraska. we have South Dakota on our list of US states to visit , a case of finding out what else to see in neighbouring states.

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