Deadwood, Mt. Rushmore, Needles Highway & Iron Mountain Road

I guess the title kind of says it all. We have had two busy days.

Deadwood came first - yesterday. I'm not sure what I expected, maybe another Virginia City, NV. but it wasn't meant to be. To me Deadwood is absolutely a tourist town. Yep, we found another one of those tourist traps. I have to say that the ride home from Deadwood back to Hart Ranch was the best part of the day and sadly, I took no pictures.

Deadwood - this is where Wild Bill Hickok met his fate while playing poker at the Saloon # 10. He never sat with his back to the door because of all the enemies he had, but this night it was the only seat available at the poker table. Well one enemy, Crooked Nose Jack McCall saw his chance ended the life of the legend with one shot. Wild Bill's final hand in poker was two black aces and two black eights to be forever know as the Dead Man's Hand.

The Main Street now is almost nothing but casino's. There are a few gift shops and snack bars thrown in. One of the newest is the Midnight Star which is at least partly owned by Kevin Costner. Throughout the casino there are many costumes that have been worn by him in various movies. They are behind glass, so picture taking is difficult.

Driving home from Deadwood we took to the back roads which afforded us a lot of pretty scenery and many sightings of deer.

I'm not sorry that we went to Deadwood but the one thing that I wanted to see, we forgot about until we were about half way home. That was Tatanka: Story of the Bison. We have heard the story of how the Native American Indians would chase the bison up a hill and over a cliff - easy hunting - but I really wanted to see the sculptures. Oh well, maybe if we come back to Gillette, WY for the Escapade next year we can stop then.

Today we drove to Keystone, SD and made train reservations for tomorrow. We are going to take the train from Hill City to Keystone and return. We will have about 3 hours in Keystone to shop and eat so we didn't spend any time there today. We did, however, continue on to Mt. Rushmore.

Your first glimpse comes just before reaching the entrance. I didn't experience the awe that I did at the Grand Canyon, but then this is man made and who hasn't seen numerous pictures of Mt. Rushmore? That's not to say I was disappointed, I wasn't. The ohhhh, just wasn't there.

We spent a good bit of time at the Visitor Center where we watched a movie on the construction and one on the "Other Side of Mt. Rushmore". The facts and information on the construction were fascinating. I'm not going to divulge everything here but one of the bits of information concerns the eyes. Look at the pictures I've posted. Look at the eyes. Do you wonder how the eyes were cut into the rock? Well the answer is - the pupil is a large piece of granite cut square and placed in the middle of what is the eye. If you zoom in on one of the close ups of Mt. Rushmore you will be able to see it. Another thing to look for is Roosevelt's glasses. Do you see them?

Leaving Mt. Rushmore we decided to drive the Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Highway - both designed by Peter Norbeck. This drive was awesome even though there where times that I wondered if it was a good idea to be doing it in the dully. Most of the road is wide enough for two vehicles but there are portions that are much narrower and then there are the tunnels. I have pictures of a couple of them. Unfortunately our windshield was dirty and I also got a lot of reflection of light in most of the tunnel pictures so I didn't keep them. But, the ones that I did post will certainly show you how narrow they are, especially the Needle Eye.

We also saw wildlife, not sure what they are - deer, elk, antelope and some wild mules (and three not so wild ones). There where also squirrels, chipmunks, and wild turkeys. Oh, and I can't forget the buffalo.

Driving this road is a must do, if you find yourself in the Black Hills of South Dakota!

We returned home mid-afternoon tired and I'll have to admit, I had a few white knuckles since I did the driving today. But hey, we're retired so we have nothing to do but rest up for tomorrow. See you then.......

Pictures will be at the picasa web site soon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SchultzTravelPhotos