20% of the way there (in terms of states visited, yes)!
The portrait on the sign is Theodore Roosevelt.
Although, let it be said that Highway 85 from Hill City to the 94 is one boring stretch of highway. A boring stretch of highway that Rand-McNally considers “scenic”, yes. I question the wisdom of Rand-McNally.
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I’m guessing Deadwood’s peak is when the bikers flock back to Sturgis. I’m a little disturbed by the number of bikers there are on our modern highways. Actually, I’m mostly just disturbed by the fact that 75% of them are retirees and don’t seem willing to travel at speeds approaching, you know, the speed limit. Meh.
Deadwood: the only town left in America that still thinks Kevin Costner is pretty cool. But good for him — he probably needs it. They’ve revitalized the town’s 19th-century mainstreet through gambling — which is probably appropriate for a town that was sort of built on gambling to begin with. Plus Wild Bill Hickok died here.
In this chair right here, in fact. Look!: you can still see where he ripped the original vinyl!
Main Street, restored.
Most of the people wandering around here were senior citizens. Sort of like Vegas: eyes glazed over, absent-mindedly pushing buttons on slot machines, discussing the qualities of a diverse set of buffets. Oh well. It sort of looked like an old wild-west town anyway.
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Stayed at this campground for a couple nights. It’s noteworthy because only five of the 15 sites have trees anywhere near them, otherwise you’re just camping on grass next to your neighbor who is also camping on grass. Also noteworthy for being overrun with bison.
This bison guards the bathroom. And the photo reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns buys the Count Chocula cereal because the picture on the box looks like him.
Fortunately, I got a site next to a tree, which offered some protection from the raging herd.
The campsite cost $20/night, but on the plus side the bathrooms have showers in them — you just have to fight through the bison before you can use them (and believe me, once you’ve wrestled a few bison, you *need* a shower).
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My favorite part of South Dakota was driving these two roads. You see the best parts of the Black Hills (even views of Mt. Rushmore!), get to drive through dynamited tunnels, and it’s got interesting bridges: unexpectedly cool. The road goes from about Mt. Rushmore (actually Keystone, a town) into Custer State Park, then heads up north back out of the park to — well, to the park boundary.
For some reason these are called pigtail turns. You go over the bridge, do about 270 degrees, then go back under the bridge. And if I’d thought about it a little more, I would’ve stopped and taken some better pictures.
And there are all these cool one-lane tunnels. Not pictured: the tunnel itself frames a view of Mt. Rushmore (but there was traffic behind me, and…).
Un burro salvaje!
Every biker’s true passion: taking photos with a buddy. This was the narrowest tunnel on the Needles Highway — about eight feet wide.
This formation is known as “the needle”. It’s probably better without the shadow, but I wasn’t waiting four-to-eight hours just to find out.
Anyway, point being: cool drive. I think the Black Hills could adequately be covered in a day, though: cave, Crazy Horse, Rushmore, Norbeck/Needles, and you’re out of there, heading toward… huh. There’s not much else around there. Tja.
Also: the rock formations that are the Black Hills’ signature (apparently) reminded me some of the Sächsische Schweiz south of Dresden, except that the “Schweiz” has a big ol’ river, castles, old bridges, and very quaint towns in it. Maybe South Dakota could look into adding some of those. (The similarity of the rock formations is sort of uncanny, though.)
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The peak was cool. Tallest peak between the Rockies and the Pyrenees, they say (7,244 feet!). The loop hike itself was not as cool. Hint: if you’re going to hike to Harney Peak, take the shortest route possible. Don’t think you’re going to get extra credit for taking the long route. You just get more horse manure to walk through (or around — you can walk around it).
Not really any photos of the hike on the way up, since there wasn’t anything to take photos of. I mean, trees, horse scats, but — yeah. Not big trees, just trees. Five to seven miles of trees each way.
Peak:
There’s a fire tower at the peak.
No fires!
No fires this direction, either.
This is what it looks like when you try and photograph yourself crossing a stream.
I dunno. I don’t like hiking for the sake of hiking. Frex: no worthwhile hike should deliver you to a parking lot two miles into the hike. Plus, aside from the peak, seems like you get better views of better rocks by driving the Black Hills than by hiking them. You know, from what I saw.
Hmm.
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Drove 70 miles out of my way so I could say I’d driven to Nebraska. Here’s proof!
Those might be hay fields actually.
To celebrate the occasion, I went to the Wal-Mart in Chadron where I bought wiper fluid. Seemed appropriate.
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I’m guessing many South Dakotans have never heard of Jewel Cave. It’s only the world’s second-longest cave supposedly.
Descent into Hell! (Er — *ascent*.)
Me with two of the three Filipina-Canadians who kept wanting to take pictures of me for me. If only I’d known they were kind of cute… Oh well: it’s dark in the cave.
Three things I learned from Clint, our cave tour guide-ranger:
From Jewel Cave, it wasn’t too far to Crazy Horse (20 miles?), the stone carving that — well, the photo tells most of it:
And it’s only taken them 61 years to get this far!
The displays at the viewing center and marginally interesting museum make a big deal about the fact that this memorial will be much, much bigger than other memorials like Mt. Rushmore, the Washington Monument, the Pyramids in Giza. One crucial difference, of course, being that THOSE WERE ALL COMPLETED. Ah well. (Actually, I guess Rushmore was supposed to have all their torsos also, but whatever.) Maybe four or five more generations will get it done.
And then from there, it’s just a quick shot over to Mt. Rushmore!
No North-by-Northwest tours are offered.
A flag for every state!
While I generally consider the carving of big granite mountains into the likenesses of dead white men a good thing, I don’t think the two on the right belong in the same living room as the two on the left. Heck, Abraham Lincoln presided over the greatest tragedy in American history (and people act like that was a *good* thing). All Roosevelt ever did was start the National Parks system. Seems like an appropriate way to honor him for that would be to name a national park after him. They did already? Well that should’ve settled it then.
IMHO, plainly.
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At least, that’s what the state’s marketing department, in association with the state department of transportation, would have you believe.
If the sign says it, it must be true.
To South Dakota’s credit, there were far fewer bugs there than there are in North Dakota (apparently). Stayed in a campsite called “Comanche” that was all right also, aside from the camp host selling me wet wood and the neighboring campers washing their dishes at the community spigot. Otherwise, pretty nice NFS campground.
The bugs in ND suck. Just fyi.
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Me: The big fella around?
Devil’s Tower Imp: Huh? Oh — no. He always says he’s coming and then we get the place all fixed up for him, but then he doesn’t show up.
Me: Huh.
Imp: Yeah, he’s kind of a jerk.
Me: Makes sense.
Yep, it’s a big ol’ weird-shaped granite monolith all right!
Yep, it’s a big ol’ weird-shaped granite monolith with hay bales in front of it all right!
I walked around it. There were rock climbers on it — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Relevant Indian tribes consider the thing to be the home of 100-foot-tall bears, which seems considerably cooler than lazily assigning it to Satan. Man, but I hope there are 100-foot-tall bears somewhere. Maybe at Boundary Waters?
(Meanwhile, it’s 95 degrees in North Dakota and I’m sweating on the keyboard in the campground. Hopefully no ticks crawl in through the USB ports.)
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11:30 — Finally leave the house and head into downtown Sheridan.
11:50 — Arrive, find a sporting goods store, realize they don’t have any fishing experts there, leave.
12:00 — End up on Main Street, find another sporting goods store, realize they don’t do any fishing there, ask them if there’s a fly fishing store nearby. It’s across the street.
12:05 — Arrive at fly fishing store. They don’t sell any non-fly gear there though. I buy a license. Guy knows about fishing and likes talking about it. Guy recommends Twin Lakes, says it takes a half-hour to get there from downtown and that there are signs that clearly point it out from FS Road 26.
12:35 — Go back to the first store and buy a couple more lures.
12:45 — Leave store on “half-hour” journey to Twin Lakes.
1:45 — Arrive at Twin Lakes picnic area, but there are no lakes. Exit car and look around the area: there is a river. Wonder whether by “lake”, they mean “slow part of the river”. Decide they probably don’t.
2:05 — Cross the road to where I saw a sign for Sawmill Lake. Follow a trail for a while before I realize that it’s kind of dumb to follow a trail when you don’t know how long it is.
2:35 — Get back to car and head further into the wilderness area until I find a map by a pull-out. The map indicates only one area called “Twin Lakes”: the picnic area.
2:45 — Turn around and head to the Ranger Station.
3:05 — Arrive at Ranger Station. A helpful volunteer there says he doesn’t know how to get to Twin Lakes, but he has a map. It looks like the lakes are on another road next to the picnic area — probably the road that I didn’t go on because it was gated shut. The road doesn’t look very long.
3:25 — Arrive back at the Twin Lakes picnic area. Get out of car, get fishing gear, start heading up the closed road.
3:30 — See the lower lake, decide to head to the upper lake.
3:40 — Reach upper lake. It looks windy, so return to lower lake.
3:50 — Get gear out, put lure on swivel, open bale to cast, notice that the reel is missing its handle. Cast once to see whether it’s reasonable to reel in without a handle on the reel. It isn’t.
3:55 — Hand-spin the bale until all the line is back in. Head back toward car.
4:00 — Dig around the back of the truck looking for the handle. Find it. Put it on the reel. Try reeling a few times. Realize that there has to be something that holds the handle onto the reel, otherwise it’ll keep falling off. Dig around back of truck looking for handle lug. Find it. Screw it into the handle. Line is now all fouled up. Break off ten feet of line. Re-tie swivel and feet it through eyelets.
4:25 — Gather up gear, head back out to lakes again.
4:30 — Arrive at lower lake. Cast ten times. Eight of these casts come back with grass.
4:40 — Head for upper lake.
4:50 — Arrive at upper lake, maneuver around to the side of the lake where there’s something like a spit going out into the water (which is obviously much lower than it’s been).
5:00 — Put lure onto swivel, cast.
5:35 — Having caught nothing, seen no fish jump and no birds swooping down, realize that I should probably get back to my bro’s house before someone sends the police after me. Leave.
6:30 — Return to bro’s house.
I think the more apt question is whether it beats an *average* day working. Yes, certainly it beats an average day working. The best day working? I mean, the best day working at my old job included having cool vendor people take me go-karting or to basketball games, so probably not. A bad day — let alone the worst day — fishing probably isn’t better than the best day working (depending on what you do for a living). But still: better than an average work day, rest assured.
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