The Black Hills of South Dakota

Spearfish Canyon, SD
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9/18/2008

Left Devils Tower and drove into the Black Hills. Entered South Dakota and I was surprised to find that the time change to Central is in the middle of the state. Headed to Spearfish where we followed Spearfish Canyon toward Deadwood. The final scene of Dances With Wolves (where Kevin Costner and his bride head off on their own) was filmed here. It is quite beautiful. Our campground is in Hill City, SD and we arrived around noon. We will stay here 3 nights. It’s great we got our satellite in and have wi-fi and all the bells and whistles. Decided we would attend the night lighting ceremony at Mr. Rushmore tonight and stop for dinner. Headed out and set our GPS to take us to Keystone (town near the monument). Well for some reason the GPS doesn’t like it here. We had no idea where we were. We stumbled upon a restaurant, stopped to eat and got directions to Mt. Rushmore. Although we had been before we thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony – it brought tears. Since we were very low on gas we drove into Keystone to fill up. We figured the GPS would get is back to camp – well think again. We wandered all over the place – pitch dark and very curvy. Finally found our way back. We will not use the GPS again here.

More Spearfish Canyon, SD
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9/19/2008

This morning we headed back to Mt. Rushmore to see it in the daylight. It was more beautiful and much clearer to see, especially for photos. The ones we took last night did not come out well. Visited the museum and walked the Presidential Trail to the base. We then headed out on a round about way to Rapid City. We drove up Skyline Drive which dissects the city and rises up in the mountains. It has a fabulous view of both the city and the Black Hills. After that I got my nails done at the Wal-Mart nail salon while Mike did some shopping for us. Headed back a different way and had a nice evening at our campground. This is really a beautiful area. The rock outcroppings are amazing.

Motorhome in Spearfish Canyon
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9/20/2008

After a leisurely morning we headed out for a circle drive around the Hills. Headed South on Needles Highway and enjoyed a beautiful drive. Huge rocks jutting to the sky and lots of horseshoe curves along the way. We drove by Sylvan Lake which was filmed in National Treasure II. There were three one car bridges that were very tiny – the motorhome would never fit. From there we drove through a part of Custer State Park which is loaded with animals. It is a beautiful example of East meets West as the prairies merge with the hills. Decided to visit Wind Caves National Park (one we never heard of before) and ended up taking one of the tours down into the cave. It was quite an experience. We walked down to 200 feet underground through some very narrow passages. There were beautiful formations and colors. It is very different looking than most caves and there are still many miles that have never been explored. Luckily we got to take an elevator up. We then continued through Custer Park and drove the Wildlife

Beautiful Mt. Rushmore
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Trail. Saw mule deer, buffalo and wild burros. Took the Iron Mountain Road cut off which headed toward home. It was a gorgeous ride – we crossed three pigtail bridges (bridges that wrap around each other) and drove through two more one lane tunnels. One of the tunnels framed Mr. Rushmore perfectly. Since we filled up with gas in the car on the night of the 18th we drove 220 miles. Boy are we tired but happy tonight. We haven’t played golf since Crooked River in Oregon but both agreed we haven’t missed it since there are so many beautiful things to see.