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The weather is wet and cold. It is not a good day to be out and about but we went anyway. We just changed directions. We headed to Deadwood, an interesting town where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. We went into the saloon and paid our 10 dollars each to go into the original bar where he was shot. It was in the basement which used to be street level, just like Chattanooga they had flooding issues so the build up the street burying the first floors of buildings. Deadwood was a dead town in the 90’s. It still had the clamor board side walks. It had been a mining, gambling and prostitution hub in its hay day. The town petitioned the state to allow casinos as they were part of their history and won. Apparently this is what started all of the casinos on reservations. They had a very small museum that had the most interesting artifacts. The Adams museum displayed items belonging to the last Russian Czar’s family, the first black hills train, fossils and the fur coat that belonged to the last madame of the town among many other items. We left Deadwood and headed for Spearfish canyon along the way we saw a shack that was a rock shop and decided to stop. It turn out the shop owner actually has his zoo keepers license and raises foxes and wolves. We chitchatted and he offered to give us a private tour. In the shop he had a baby red fox he was bottle feeding. He also has a wolf that the Guinness book of world records is coming to confirm is the largest living wolf. I think he said his weight was 258 pounds. Total about 8 adult wolves, two baby wolves, about 8 foxes (red, sliver, arctic marble and gray) and the baby red fox. That was a most unusual stop. He has really neat fossils of dinosaurs several of which where from the private collection of the first person to find and identify that particular species. It was late when we left there so we returned to Rapid City. It was another great day. We are so blessed to be on this trip.

Deadwood historic main street.

Typical store front.

In one of the stores we tried on hats but couldn’t decide which one was best.

Saloon where Hickok was killed. Picture showing the bar.

Saloon where Hickok was killed. Picture from behind the bar.

The Adams Museum had a two headed cow they said lived 6 weeks among other interesting artifacts from historical Deadwood.

Sleeping fox kit at the rock shop.

Playful wolf pups.

Yawning arctic marble fox.

World largest wolf maybe.

Two of many wolves he keeps.

He also sells fossils and rocks.

It is so nice to be in a house. We don’t seem to sleep past 5am regardless of the time zone but it is wonderful to be able to lay around and drink coffee. So good to have a kitchen and laundry. Today we went to Mount Rushmore. That is a must see that takes oh 5 minutes. Then we drove over to Crazy Horse, a great exhibit and very interesting site but other than the face it doesn’t seem to be progressing. On the advice of our waiter at Murphys we went to Bear Country. This is a drive through animal park. It was pretty cool. I have never seen so many bears in one place in my whole life. It was nice to see them roaming free. Dinner was at the Alpine Hotel in Hill City, once again on the advice of Adam the waiter. It opened and 5 and there were people swarming in. While waiting in line we met Pat. She is a nice lady that works around the country season to season. She has worked in the Black hills for 2 summers. She says it is a wonderful place to summer, she had dinner with us and gave us a slew of places to go and things to do while informing us all about coolworks.com, the site were she finds her jobs. It sounded fun to me. I think this was Leighton’s first dinner with a stranger. She is pouring wine tasting at a winery the summer. She invited us to stop by for a tasting. She recommend the Badass Red Rhubarb Wine – their best seller. We are welcome to come by her RV for a visit too. Tomorrow we will visit the mastodon site she told us about and couple other place. Miss you all and wish you were sharing our adventure.

Approaching Rushmore Monument

The crying Presidents – not sure if it is because of the state of the country or the rain

Stone-faced Washington

A view on the other side of the monument

Crazy Horse Monument

Crazy Horse detail.  Looking at pictures from the 1990’s it doesn’t look like much progress has been made.

How the monument should look when finished.

Another pretty little lake we went past.

Bear cubs dancing or fighting.

Bear Country Elk.

Snacking on a log and napping on a rock bed.

One extremely well fed bear.

A wood chuck on the side of the road.

Playing bear cubs video.

 

 

 

 

 

This was another adventurous day. We left the Badlands and headed for the hills. Since we couldn’t check in until 4 we decided to go to Custer State park. They have an animal loop with bison, other native animals and donkeys. Good enough to go back to. We enjoyed seeing a car surrounded by bison. They were licking the car and blocking the road. Lots of little bison. Then we went to the Needles highway. OMG, I drove that road. It rises over 3000 feet in elevation and is nothing but w and s curves , one car tunnels and no guard rails. We laughed when we got to one of the highest over looks. All the vehicles had woman drives. I think the only way you can do that ride with your husband is if you drive. Not ashamed to say I did 5 mile an hour stretches. One of the over looks had boulders on the side. People feed the chipmunks there so often they will sit on you hand and each their treats.

After finally reaching Rapid City we went out in search of fine dining. All of the places listed as fine dining on the net were closed on Monday. Frustrated we walked the street and found Murphy’s bar and grill. It was awesome. We had a redneck sausage sampler, which was three 8″ sausages on a stick. So much we haven’t finished it yet. Also an Ace pineapple beer. Leighton and I both thought it was great. We were so happy to be eating a great meal we must have been a bit enthusiastic. The waiter said you know we really like happy people here. You guys are having so much fun we would like to extend a special invitation to you. They have an invitation only speakeasy in the basement on Friday and Saturday nights. Special drinks and menu. You have to text for a reservation. They reply with a phrase you have to say at the door in order to get in. We might just have to go. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention Sylvan Lake. There you are driving along Needles and you drive up to the most beautiful lake in the world. Pictures cannot do it justice. The end of the lake is formed by giant boulder. It was truly stunning.

All alone

Bison by the dozens

Bison carwash

The view from Needles highway

Black Hills Rocks – notice the climber on one of the peaks

Needles Eye Tunnel

Proceeding through the tunnel

Sylvan Lake

 

 

 

 

We were to tired to post and had a bit of trouble getting into our room that night. We headed out to see animals at 5am. It was an amazing day with so many great pictures, I actually heard Leighton say I have enough let’s go. We went to Wall for dinner. I order the dirty bird but got the chicken slop instead. The kitchen made a mistake. I ate it anyway because everything was covered in white gray so they all looked the same. We watched baby big horn sheep playing on the rocky slopes. On the way home we decided just to climb a rock and watch to see if anything came by. It was incredible. There were two prong horn deer off in the distance and a coyote. they didn’t care about each other at all. It was dark when we got back to the cabin and our key didn’t work. Of course I needed the bathroom. We hunted for someone to talk to , a number to call or anyone who could help us get into our room. Just as we decided we were going to spend the night in the car a guy walked by with his dog. Turn out he was a ranger. It took him another 30 minutes to figure out who to call to help us out. A car pulled up near by and just sat there. It was freaking me out. It turned out to be another couple in the same boat. Enjoy the pictures.

A flying leap

Time for food

Doesn’t anyone want to play

Early morning mule deer

Coyote and pronghorn late in the evening

Coyote on the move

Sunrise over the Badlands

 

There is a downside to going to a national park before the season really starts, at least one in the middle of nowhere. Food is hard to come by. If you want to eat in this park it must be between 8am and 4:30pm. Today  we left before the restaurant opened and thought we would pack a lunch. We were gone all day and I left lunch on the table. Breakfast and lunch were sparse and we didn’t want to rush back for a 4:30 dinner so we thought we would go to Cactus Flats. On the way we visited the prairie homestead which was a sod house and we stopped at the ranch store. This is where you can feed prairie dogs. Although the store was closed, on the honor system ,you could leave a dollar and take a bag of peanuts to feed the little guys. I think I had an allergic reaction to them.  We trekked to  Cactus Flats, drove right through and didn’t even notice. It consisted of a trading post. With no hope of a restaurant of any kind we settled for a roller dog for dinner. Leighton’s was at least exotic. He had a buffalo roller dog. When we get to rapid city we are going to have a decent meal.

The park rangers made Leighton’s day today. They were amazed with his badger and least squirrel pictures and asked if he would share and if they could use them in a presentation. Apparently they aren’t easy to get. Today Leighton got his burrowing owl shots. They are hard to get. We drove and drove and drove today. Tomorrow we will leave at the crack of dawn for another day hunting animals.

Burrowing Owl

Sleeping Ram

Mule Deer

Pronghorn on the run

A fly in the eye

Sod House

It’s a tough life especially when you only get roller dogs

 

Leighton hasn’t recovered from his exciting day. We decided to take a 30 minute ride to the largest “drug store” in the world in Wall today, returned home 8 hours later. It was an exciting day for Leighton as he probably took over 1000 photos including lesser chipmunk, badger with a prairie dog, bighorn sheep, pronghorn and bison. I can’t tell you how many times he disappeared on his hunt for the animals. Only once when he walked out onto a tiny strip of mountain top did I panic. Now he calls his lesser chipmunk shots the “yell at me pictures”. When he was showing me the pictures he said, that chipmunk was so daring, if that plant would have broken he would have fallen over 300 feet. On our way to Wall we had a rattlesnake cross the road in front of us. Really did not want to see one even crossing the road. It was snowing in Wall – the blowing cotton wood blooms looked just like snow.  Below are a few highlights of our day.

What a day! We traveled from Valentine to the Badlands. Before leaving Valentine we drove and hiked through Fort Niobrabra a wildlife refuge. Leighton got a great picture. The highlight, newly hatched killdeer chicks. The father was so dramatic trying to drawn Leighton’s attention. We had to get past them and the chick just keep going down the road. Finally we were able to get by and the daddy bird made a scene and fused in front of us until he was satisfied we were far enough away. We took the scenic road, route 20, across Nebraska. Beautiful and desolate. We went through several towns, one had 20 people, the next 118 (no food or gas) and finally found one with both  before turning north to the badlands. It was strange to drive into the badlands. We went from rolling hills to barren peaks in moments.
As Leighton’s chauffeur through the badlands I had to follow the commands of STOP, NO Don’t STOP with a few slow downs thrown in for good measure. Leighton’s is in his element as you will see in the pictures.

 

It is so nice to be able to change plans on a whim. This morning we planned to go to the botanical garden. The morning turned out to be rainy so we changed plans. We went to the most wonderful rock shop. Custom Gems. Great people, prices, fossils and information. They showed us their personal site collecting map for South Dakota and let us take pictures and gave us travel trips. Based on the information from them and our desire to stay off the interstate as much as possible (2 accidents on the way to rock shop involving tractor trailers turned over) we opted to go to Ashfall the animal Pompeii. This was an amazing site where millions of years ago animals were killed by volcanic ash from a Yellowstone eruption. From there we traveled the back roads to Valentine. This small town has hearts lining its main street. As we were taking a stroll Leighton asked very seriously, “Why do you think everything around here has to do with hearts?” to which I responded, “??????”
We went to the Bull Market for dinner. Hilarious place. I thought they were serving turkey meat balls and thought that would be tasty. The waitress didn’t know how to respond when I asked her what they were made with. She slowly said turkey balls, balls that’s all. Check out the menu pic. Great beer too. They had tasters so I tried a chocolate, cherry brown ale that wasn’t very sweet but was very good.

2 is a small horse fossil.

3 is a barrel-chested rhino fossil.

This shows all the fossils found in this area – they were left as found so everyone could see

We are both looking forward to spending a few days in the same location. Tomorrow we arrive in the Badlands! Yeah.!

Below shows a typical road we were on and the change in terrain from flat to hilly.

The town of Valentine, NE.

Kinda makes your mouth water, doesn’t it.

 

Before I begin, for those of you who do not know how Leighton and I are doing this blog, let me explain. Leighton takes all of the photos and because he enjoys finding all my mistakes, he adds his comments, makes final changes and publishes the blog. I hope that helps to explain some of the comments and photos such as those referencing gas stations. I am sure you have all heard him say males never mature past the age of 15 and even in our golden years he never fails to demonstrate that fact.

Today we spent the entire day at the Omaha zoo.  We walked 7 miles up and down hills. The highlight of the zoo was the Lied Jungle Exhibit, probably the best zoo exhibit we have ever seen. I think the pictures will tell  you how much fun we had.

This little guy was staring into a heat lamp for a very long time, by now I suspect he is blind.

African Wild Cat that looks pretty tame.

Klipslinger.

The robin feeding her brood was an extra not normally seen at the zoo.

Long drive across the bottom of Missouri. Crossing the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and seeing all of the flooding really gave us a new perspective on flooding in the Midwest. We even had to detour once off the interstate because it was flooded. We stopped once between Mammoth and Springfield MO at a place called Patti’s 1880 Village. Turns out it was just a bunch of shops and a couple of restaurants with some chickens, turkeys, and peacocks. The pictures below are from Patti’s. Not much else to see other than flat farms and dead armadillos. Enjoy the few pictures of our day on the 7th. We stayed in the worse Holiday Inn Express in Springfield. So bad we asked for sheets to change the bed. Did a good bed bug inspection. They said we couldn’t change rooms due to remodeling, this morning there were over a hundred new mattresses in the parking lot, hum….. As Springfield lodging was not to our liking we moved on to Omaha. On the way we went past a couple of different sights, the World of Fun in Kansas City and an interesting gas station chain called Kum and Go – makes us wonder what sort of folks live in Missouri. The BW we are in is beautiful and we will stay here 2 nights. There is much to do and see. Tomorrow we will go to the zoo and the botanical gardens. It is 91 degrees here. Isn’t that crazy. Love and miss you all.