Monday, September 29th: After a late day departure from Edmonton, on a beautiful warm fall day, we spent the first night on the road at Drumheller. Had not been there in years, but still lots of dinosaurs around!
The next morning we began the 11 hour drive to Billings, Montana via Great Falls. We had decided against the Cypress Hills route as the forecast for most of Southern AB and Montana was for a cool, damp day. We were very pleased that the border crossing at Coutts / Sweetgrass was empty and we were thru in less than a minute. The entire day was extremely windy but happy that it was out of the north / northwest; the fuel mileage was spectacular!
On Wednesday morning we departed Billings and headed an hour southeast, to visit Little Bighorn National Monument, the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn or commonly referred to as Custer's last stand.
An interesting historical site: on June 25th and 26th, 1876, the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army led by General George Custer was defeated by approximately 7,000 Sioux warriors from the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota tribes. In final desperation, Custer's men shot their horses to provide breastworks. With the exception of Custer, all of the soldiers were scalped. It is unclear why Custer was not scalped; whether it was out of respect for the General or that he had trimmed his hair so short that he couldn't be scalped.
After travelling through the rest of Montana and Wyoming (ho hum, much like parts of the bald prairies and then vast scrub lands with no civilization between towns), we arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota later on Wednesday evening, for three nights.
Early Thursday morning we set out into the Black Hills of South Dakota, named by the Lakota Sioux, for the black image that is produced by the thick forest of ponderosa and jack pines and spruce trees. First stop was Mount Rushmore; four 60 foot granite sculptures of four American presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The original plan called for full rock sculptures from the heads down to the top of the waist. It took 14 years to complete the sculptures. It was a beautiful sunny morning so afforded great views of the mountain.
We then visited the Crazy Horse monument, the sculpture in progress of the Lakota warrior Chief Crazy Horse best known for his defeat of General Custer's army. at 64 years in the making it continues to be a slow work in progress, although very impressive.
Next we drove the Needles highway, through narrow tunnels of rock and corkscrew roads. This led to Custer State Park in the heart of the Black Hills, where we saw buffalo, antelope, and deer grazing.
Then we visited Wind Cave National Park, the sixth longest underground cave in the world with 140 miles of explored convoluted multilevel passageways. It is estimated that only ten percent of the cave has been discovered. What makes Wind Cave unique is that it is situated in a one square mile area beneath the rolling prairie of the Black Hills of South Dakota. A great day of sightseeing.
Thursday, October 3 we headed for Deadwood via the back roads of the Black Hills. The rain storm that passed through last night had obviously been snow flurries at these higher elevations! Just for us, so we wouldn’t be lonesome for home.
Then on to “Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon #10”, where Wild Bill Hickok ‘bit the dust’. Saw his framed "Deadman’s Hand" (2 black aces and 2 black eights) and had lunch at the Social Club upstairs.
We then toured Kevin Costner’s saloon / casino, “The Midnight Star”, that houses memorabilia from all his movies. A fun day in Deadwood and yes Linda came home with a little more money than she started with! Enroute back to our campground we decided to stop into Sturgis to see what it was about. At this time of year it is nothing more than a quaint little town and the streets rolled-up early! But it is infamous each year in August for the past 74 years; hundreds of thousands of motorcycles descend upon this little town for a rally. Up early tomorrow for a day of travel.
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