The Black Hills of South Dakota

The Journey East Begins

09/06/2021 – 09/17/021

  As we were planning our exit strategy from the sticks and bricks way of life, we began to plan our trip across the US. Since one of the primary reasons we chose to go mobile was to spend more time with our parents, we knew we were going to be spending an extended amount of time in North Carolina and Florida. It is general knowledge that everyone wants to winter in the warm and sunny states and we knew getting a spot in Florida might be challenging. I was able to find a park close in proximity to my mom, who lives in Tampa and my dad, who lives in Spring Hill and some of Bill’s family, who live in Lakeland. Now the fun begins. In February of this year I had to call at 5AM Pacific Time to reach the park at 8AM Eastern Time to place our names on a waiting list for a spot then wait 6 weeks to find out if we were able to secure said spot. Luck was on our side and we got in, YAY! Now we can start planning the rest of the trip.

  First order of business was to set up domicile and residency for ourselves and we chose to do this in South Dakota. We used SD Residency Center . The first leg of our journey took us from Portland OR to Spearfish SD. We travelled 3 long days and finally pulled into our campsite at the KOA in Spearfish. We were ready to park our home for a few days. Along the way though, I discovered we would be driving right by Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Well, we had to stop. We toured the little museum at the visitor’s center and then walked up to the hill of Custer’s last stand and over to the memorial for the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians. We wanted to get to Spearfish before dark, so we only spent an hour here, but you could easily spend two or three.

  We spent 10 days in Spearfish, which is in the north end of the Black Hills. Our first day was spent getting our drivers licenses and registering the jeep and rig. This was all surprisingly easy to do and took less than two hours. Now we can go explore our new home state.

  The Black Hills are a beautiful little gem in the southwest corner of South Dakota and there is so much to do here during all the seasons. The first thing we did was check out Deadwood which was just 10 miles away from us. What a cute little western town. The town was founded in 1876 and is where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. We picked up a walking tour map and spent the afternoon exploring the historic Main Street. It was fascinating walking thru town and reading about the lively history and looking at the historical photos of this gold boom town and imagining what life was like back then. We watched a reenactment of a street shoot-out and Bill even participated in a reenactment of Wild Bill’s shooting. Don’t worry Hollywood, you will not be gaining a new actor. As with all mining towns, prostitution was prevalent. In fact, it was very much a part of this town until the FBI shut it down in the 1980s. We did the guided tour of the Brothel and spent a very interesting hour hearing the history and seeing the rooms. We walked thru the parlor, the ladies’ rooms, which were depicted for each decade the brothel was open, and the madame’s room. Our tour guide was entertaining and peppered the facts with some amusing stories. We ended the day with a stop at a couple of the small casinos and walked away with a few extra bucks in our pocket.

  Saturday, 9/11, we planned to go to Custer State Park but did we want to go to Mt Rushmore on 9/11 or save it for the following day when there might be less people? Let’s just say I was having an “off day” today. I forgot our National Park Pass (just in case we decided to go to Mt Rushmore), I forgot the binoculars for any wildlife we may encounter, I didn’t bring any snacks, I messed up Bill’s phone camera when we were taking a selfie in front of some beautiful rock formations and then I dropped my phone as we were slowly driving by some burros and I was trying to snap some pictures. Fortunately, the screen protector did its job and my phone survived. But, I was done…

Now, Custer State Park is a must see. The Needles Highway has magnificent views of spires or needles as they call them. We put the top down on the jeep and took in all the views. Once you drive thru the Needles Tunnel on the way to Sylvan Lake you will pass a rock formation called the Needle’s Eye. This is one of the many photo ops along the drive. We looped back around and took a forest road over to the Wildlife Loop. A portion of the Wildlife Loop road was closed so we decided to take another forest road along the backside of the loop and then pick the paved road back up. We saw one buffalo on the forest road. That’s it: no deer, no elk, no antelope, no herds of buffalo… It was late afternoon by the time we made it to the paved portion of the Wildlife Loop where we soon found the burros and a little further down a huge herd of bison, however they were far off on the plain and just looked like little brown dots. Bill saw another little dirt road heading out their way and off we went. It didn’t take us any closer to them but did take us along a stretch of land where we found prairie dogs. They were so fun to watch, going in and out of their tunnels, barking at each other and looking for food. With the Wildlife Loop complete, there was one more drive to make and that was Iron Mountain which comes out by Mt Rushmore. At this point we decided to go on to Mt Rushmore for the evening lighting ceremony. As we are making our way over to Iron Mountain Road, we hear thunder in the distance and see black clouds start moving in. Remember I said the top was down on the jeep? Well, we don’t have a button to push to make the top come up easily. Nope. It is manual AND we do not have a lot of practice putting it up. The first couple of times we did, it was taking 20 minutes. This storm would be here and gone in 20 minutes. We hopped out (I set the timer on my phone. Hey, I’m curious) and start putting the top up. We hustled, lightening was cracking around us and the thunder was booming. We managed to have it up in 8 minutes and were back in the jeep before the rain started to fall. On to Iron Mountain, another engineering feat. The curvy roads, switchbacks, pigtail bridges and one lane tunnels make it a beauty to drive. Heading north as you exit the last tunnel there is a stunning view of the four presidents. 

Mt Rushmore is not far away and we are going to be there just in time. Each evening the park does a lighting ceremony of the sculpture. We have been to Mt Rushmore two other times but never for this. We took our seat in the outdoor amphitheater and watched dusk turn to night and the sculpture disappeared into the darkness. Before the planned ceremony, the NPS Rangers had a special presentation commemorating the 20^th anniversary of 9/11. A moment of silence was observed and then everyone was asked to share with the person sitting next to them where you were on 9/11. There was a lot of good conversation going on. The lighting ceremony continued and the sculpture appeared from the darkness in all its glory. Everyone sang the National Anthem and then the rangers continued with a special flag lowering ceremony. All veterans and first responders were called to the stage to be recognized and honored. The whole evening was moving and we are very thankful we decided to be here on this special day in our history.

  Now, do you like quirky, “big ball of yarn” type destinations? If they are not hours out of the way, we definitely check them out. We saw a sign in Spearfish that read “Center of the Nation – 10 Miles” Really? How could the center of the nation be in South Dakota? After a little investigating, sure enough the geographical center of the US moved from Kansas to South Dakota with the admission of Hawaii and Alaska. Sorry, Kansas, you still have the honor of being geographical center of the lower 48. There was a monument built in the little town just north of us, Belle Fourche (pronounced Belle Foosh) and the actual geographical survey marker is another 25 miles out in a farmer’s pasture. We visited both and it was pretty cool.

  Devil’s Tower is located in Wyoming, but not far from Spearfish. Time allowed us to make the drive over one day after work. It was a beautiful drive thru the most northern part of the Black Hills. Then the monolith appears out of nowhere far off in the distance. Visions of Close Encounters enter my mind. What a strange sight this is. It really does look like someone took a piece of clay and ran a big fork down all its sides. We were able to drive right up to the base and look around. Today, I remembered the binoculars too and good thing, there were some rock climbers about 1/3 of the way from the top and we could watch them climb. What possess a person to climb rocks? Anyway, if time had allowed, there is a hike that goes around the base of the tower that I would have like to have done. Next time…

  The last gem we experienced during our stay here was driving the Spearfish Canyon. This 19-mile drive is right in our backyard! It begins in Spearfish and ends in Lead (pronounced Leed) What a GORGEOUS drive with several waterfalls and spectacular canyon views.  Bridal Veil Falls was almost dry since there has not been very much rain this year but Roughlock and Spearfish Falls were stunning. As we were driving up to Roughlock, we also saw where the final scenes of Dances with Wolves were filmed. (Of course we had to go home and watch the movie that night). The leaves were just beginning to change making the drive even more pretty. We ended the day with a beer and cheese curds in Sturgis just a few miles from the end of the canyon drive.

 We thoroughly enjoyed our time in our new home state and still have plenty to explore when we return. Before we left we managed to take a ride out to Cement Ridge, which is a fire lookout, and watched the sunset over the prairie. It was phenomenal.