Page 56 - SOUTH DAKOTA - APRIL 23rd

April 23, 2005

After several days in North Platte, we left to get away from the Nebraska weather. Nebraska left an impression on us ... unfortunately. A 3:00 am a hail and thunderstorm left some small dings in the truck and shattered one of the roof vent covers in the bedroom. There was over 2 inches of rain, and the high winds just about never stopped. The locals welcome the rain, as they said that they have been suffering a drought for the past five years. In fact, the day we were hit by the storm was a record rainfall event for North Platte. Larry's RV center in North Platte did the repair to the vent cover, and they were quick and most reasonable.

We headed toward South Dakota in a head wind of 20-30 miles an hour. Drove through the Sand Hills of Nebraska. Guess that's where the cranes come from ... we did see one. Gigantic grass covered sand hills for endless miles. No trees, unless there is a creek around. Lots of "ponding" due to all the rain. No golf courses, which seemed odd. If you wanted to build a sand trap in this area, all you have to do is dig a hole. Of course, there are not all that many people in the area, so that probably keeps the number of golfers down.

Drove into South Dakota, which is prairie time. A prairie is a desert where there is not enough rain to support trees, but there is just enough rain to support grasses. So there are rolling fields of nothing but grass for as far as you can see, and that's pretty far out here. We kept driving west until we hit the Badlands National Park. The Badlands just pop up out of the ground. It's not gradual. One minute prairie ... then Badlands. A truly bizarre world. We got to an RV campground just south of the park about 5 miles outside of Interior, SD -- population 67. The campground has just opened for the year. There are us, and one other RV. It's early in the season. We will spend the day driving and walking through the Badlands. It's sunny, and the winds are not blowing, and that's a refreshing change from the past 5 days. But last night we did have a frost. Still a bit nippy in this early Spring area. I'll save the Badlands report for later. I have seen pictures of the Badlands, but it is hard for the pictures to do justice to the place. You just can't get enough the weird rocks into the lens at the same time.

Page 56 - BADLANDS TO BLACK HILLS TO DEADWOOD (cherry names in the Dakotas)

April 25, 2005

We spent a day in the weirdness of the Badlands National Park. Yes they always say "the pictures don't do it justice," and that truly is the case.

I had some erroneous ideas about South Dakota. In fact, I used to confuse it with that other Dakota to the North. For some reason, I thought most of the state was filled with badlands, but it seems that they're just in this one "relatively" small spot in the state. You can drive all the park roads in a day if you work at it (and if you have a high clearance vehicle for some of the rugged roads). The paved road loop from the Interstate gets the most travel, and does include all the most spectacular rock formations. But to see the herds of antelope (pronghorns) and buffalo (bison) and prairie dogs (prairie dogs), you have to do the gravel roads. And there are not all these signs telling you to stay in your car. Or to stay on the paths. In fact, for a National Park, this place has gone minimal on the warning signs. It's almost like they are treating you like adults. Of course, this is very early in the tourist season. Could be different during the summer. We did not see one park ranger on our travels during the day, and only a couple of other cars on the gravel roads.

Donna says take 2 more steps forward	Typical Bad Lands photo
Donna catches movement on the prairie	Our first antelope encounter

When you leave the park gravel road, and get on to the State gravel highway road, the speed limit goes to 50 mph. On a gravel road with curves! Never ran into that before. Personally, I didn't get up to 50 mph. But all the bumps don't feel as bad when you are going over them at a faster speed.
Another thing about the Badlands. All those lunar landscape type rocks are not all that hard. They are not like a granite, or even sandstone. They are more like a poor quality concrete mix. Think of an older Pennsylvania concrete bridge, and you get the idea. And after a heavy rain, you can see all this silt wash at the bottom of these weird rocks. The creeks and rivers in this area are a milky whitish color due to the Badlands silt runoff. Geologically speaking, these Badlands are melting pretty fast. I don't know if new ones are being created, or if all these old ones will eventually just melt away. I should have paid more attention in Geology class. As far a National Parks are concerned, give two big thumbs up to the Badlands.

We drove west today and ended up in Deadwood, SD. If you don't know where Deadwood is, it's 12 miles south of Sturgis, SD, which is home of the biggest Harley Davidson motorcycle gathering in the world each year. We drove through Sturgis. It's just not that big a place. Don't know where they put all those bikes.

Now Deadwood is very interesting, especially to someone who has lived in Hancock, MD. Donna always said they were similar, but I had to see it for myself to believe it. They are CLONES! The population is about the same. Pop. 1860 in Deadwood. The both have history. Wild Bill Hickcok and Calamity Jane are buried here in Deadwood, which began as a gold rush type boom town. The buildings are the same, and the geography is identical. Lots of hills, steep narrow roads, and the challenges of parking and rainwater runoff. The sizes of the buildings are all about the same as Hancock, as well as the park, schools, stores and shops. There was a railway running through town at one time, but it's gone now. Their railroad station didn't burn down, and it's used as the visitor's center now. Both towns also are located near Interstates that are away from big cities, and both towns are surrounded by state/national forest lands.

Here are the differences. They somehow got the entire town listed on the National Historic Register. That means all the buildings ... at least the front of the buildings you can see from the street ... must be kept historically the same. And sometime around 1990, they got casino gambling approved. So most of the buildings along main street now have slot machines and black jack and poker tables, except for a few restaurants, saloons, gift shops and jewelry stores. No huge newly constructed casinos were allowed. Had to use the existing buildings. So what has happened is that all the old buildings downtown have been completely renovated, and are doing a booming business. This is just the start of the tourist season here, and there are many people visiting the casinos. New construction has taken place on the way into town in the form of motels. And the town has parking lots with shuttle bus services for all the visitors/gamblers. Talking to some of the residents, they seem to have mixed emotions. One woman said, "You can't buy a pair of socks in town anymore. But the casinos have done one thing. All the old buildings are fixed up now, the water/sewer/roads/schools/street lights/etc. are repaired. And of course, the tourist dollars are flowing in regularly." (That lady ran a gas station.)
Other residents said that there are too many people there during the tourist season, which begins about now. But I guess you will always have tradeoffs.

Well, I'll just finish by saying we took a LONG drive today, and saw both Mount Rushmore and Devil's Tower (in Wyoming). Amazing places. Well worth the trips! And we saw critters. We saw wild turkey and deer and two Rocky Mountain goats in the Black Hills. At Devil's tower, we saw dozens of wild turkey and two dozen deer and a prairie dog city. And on the drive through the prairies of eastern Wyoming, we saw at least 100 deer and herds of antelope that probably exceeded 300 critters total. In Wyoming, they don't have Deer Crossing signs ... they have Game Crossing signs. I have never seem so many wild critters in a single day in my lifetime. And I'm not even counting the chipmunks, the rabbits or the birds.

Old Goat (on the rocks)	Rushmore just before snow
Larry, after the climb (right!)	Donna's great picture of a Devil's Tower Prairie Dog

Page 56 - HI GUYS ... OUT OF DaDaKoTas

May 4, 2005

We spent a week in Deadwood. Actually, we spent our winter in Deadwood. After a nice weather day visiting Mount Rushmore and Devils Tower, we were hit by winter. For the remainder of the week, we had snow showers every day. One night we received 2" of the stuff that turned the Black Hills into the White Hills. We had a low temperature of 17 degrees one night, and high winds from the Northwest all week. No water at the KOA ... the pipes froze. Fortunately, this "Artic" Fox RV generated enough heat to keep all internal pipes from freezing, and that's very good. But the outside water hose froze, and the attach-on water filter cracked in half. Shucks, it was brand new. This could be why most of the RV campgrounds don't open until May in this region.

Wild turkey wandered into the campground every day, and a herd of mule deer every afternoon munched on the budding bushes. Donna did some genealogy stuff at the courthouse, and we had reasonable meals at the casinos, as long as we got the player cards. Casinos are a very good way to cut costs, if you can keep from gambling. I was picked at random to spin the Money Wheel, and did get $50. That was the best machine in the house, but their other machines took it back from me.
The Deadwood folks said that this weather was most unusual, and the temperatures were those of February in the Black Hills. But the entire surrounding areas were just as cold. The weather said that Anchorage, AK was in the 60s. We have not seen the 60s until today.

As we left the Black Hills, Donna was getting a cold. I think it turned into the Aces and Eights Deadwood flu, because she has been miserable for days now. We are back in Nebraska between Omaha and Lincoln where Donna wanted to do some genealogical research, but we had to find a doctor instead. Found a nice one in Gretna, NE, and Donna is fixed up with some antibiotics now, and is improving. Whatever it was, I sure hope it misses me ... VERY nasty stuff.

Not much to tell you about the drive through South Dakota. Lots of rolling hills and prairie land. It didn't have near the critters like in Wyoming, but the most popular road side bird was the pheasant. LOTS of pheasant along the ride.

Okay, I'm getting ready to read my OFFICIAL VISITORS GUIDE TO OMAHA - "Visit Omaha: Just for the Fun of It!" This must be the Heartland of America. Boys Town is here! (And for God's sake, don't anyone tell Michael Jackson!)