Devil's Tower and Sundance

Saturday - May 22, 2021

Our agenda today was Devil's Tower and Sundance in Wyoming.  I had a pot of chili in the crockpot, and my dishes cleaned up before Joe got up, so he suggested we just stop at McDonald's for a breakfast sandwich and then head out.  McDonald's here is still take out or drive through, so we ate on the road.  We headed up the highway to Belle Fourche, about 14 miles north.  It is just a mile past our turnoff to Wyoming, and he wanted to look for a propane place to stop at on Tuesday on our way to North Dakota.  We found one, and drove through town.  This town is considered the Center of the Nation, after Alaska and Hawaii became states (the center used to be in Smith, Kansas).  They were setting up for a kite and duck  festival at the Museum, so we stopped and took some pictures. 

 They honor our war veterans with monuments of Peace, the Korean War, and the Viet Nam War.

We took hwy 24/34 toward the Devil's Tower.  We came upon a historical marker about Custer's Expedition in Wyoming.

We were just tooling along toward Hulett when Joe saw a Forest Road (dirt) that called to him.  So we spent the next 90 minutes driving 11 miles into the Black Hills Forest again, and then turning around and coming back out.  But it was a beautiful drive, and even though we were not expecting this to be a wildlife loop, we saw plenty of deer, and some turkeys.  And some great views over the canyons.

There is evidence that they are trying to keep this forest clean.  The tree trimmer they used along the road was more like a bushhog, just torn the limbs off instead of cutting them.  I don't know if they bring a chipper in to clean up the debris or not.  But there were some piles of trees and brush to burn, and some places where they had actually burned the piles.

We finally got back to the highway.  We were coming up on the town of Hulett, and we got a glimpse of the Devil's Tower in the distance.

There are a lot of red cliffs in this area, and coupled with the green pastureland, it is a very nice view.

A couple who sat across from us at dinner last night told us there was a golf course in Hulett that looked like it was manicured.  So we drove up the hill to it.  But we think the pastureland or grassland here looks like it is manicured too.  The golf course was pretty, though.  I'm sure this is a high dollar housing development.  There were some really nice homes up here, but no yards.  Except the golf course.

Finally we got to Devil's Tower, and drove the road that takes you about half-way around it.  Joe thought our Great-Niece Hannah Croxton should come here to climb it, if she hasn't already.

There was a prairie dog village here too.  Joe wants to take his lawn chair and sit out there with them, maybe make friends,  but he left the chairs back at camp.  There was a group of 4 piled on top of each other, they must have found something tasty.

At the entrance to this road, we saw some long-horn cattle and a few buffalo.  Always happy to see the buffs.

We had decided to take a forest road on to Sundance, on the map it appeared to come out just a mile or so west of Sundance.  We missed the road the first time (the number didn't match the map) but we turned around and found it.  It was about 25 miles, we thought.  But this was where our day got interesting.  It was a good road, nice drive, saw more wildlife.  Added a new breed to our wildlife count -- peacocks.  We heard this awful squawking first, then I spotted one on a post, then another one in the yard.  Joe recognized the sound but couldn't remember what it was until we saw them.

We continued on, came upon a campsite with some firewood just ready for the taking.  The kind of campsites Jeff and Brenda, and we, like to find.

We went through some very nice groves of either aspen or birch, some larger than we are used to seeing.  I need to come back through here in the fall when their leaves are turning.

This forest was not big on road signs.  When we finally came upon signs, they usually didn't match the map we were trying to follow.  By the time we finally matched a sign with the map, we were headed back toward Hulett!  We had probably already been on this road for 2 hours, for our 25-mile trip.  And I still wanted to go to Sundance.  So we found a road that would take us back to Hwy 111, which connected to I-90, and to Sundance.  Along here, we came upon a group of deer lying down, but they all got up when we stopped.

When we finally came out on the highway, we were about 15 miles east of Sundance, instead of a mile west.  Just as we got into town, we saw the Black Hills Forest Information Center.  Joe said, "that's a hell of a place for that to be," since we had just spent two hours wandering around without a real map of the area.

And that's the other thing.  I didn't know there is also a Sundance, Utah.  All I knew about Sundance was that there is a big film festival there, and a famous actor (I couldn't remember who) had a ranch there.  Oh, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which Joe had read up on.  Well, much to my surprise, the film festival and Robert Redford's ranch are in Sundance, Utah.  So Sundance, Wyoming only had the Sundance Kid (a robber).  

As we came into town, I saw this sign,

I thought, OK, I will try to find this statue of good, old Sundance.  So we drove up and down, through the little town.  I thought there was a Sundance Kid and Western Museum here, but we couldn't find that.  The only museum listed, which we did find, was under construction.  So Sundance  was a total bust.  Except for this art gallery that had posts made from antlers, and skulls, etc.

And we had to stop for 8 deer to cross the street in front of the truck in front of us.  Right at the edge of town.

The highlight of my day was replacing my lilacs with a new bouquet.  I picked these from the same bushes as my first ones here, at the city park just up the street from the campground.  Joe said if he saw a police car, he was just going to drive on to the RV, and I was on my own.  But really, there are plenty of lilacs in this town for everyone to have some.

My biggest complaint about the jeep is that I don't have enough room for my stuff.  I am usually juggling my phone, camera, maps, notebook, pencil, and whatever Joe needs.  I need a desk, or slots, or something to hold my essentials.  Otherwise, the jeep has been doing a good job for us, and Joe really loves being able to take the dirt roads through the forests.

We got back to the RV about 6:30, it got to be a long day, 8 hours in the jeep again, 198 miles.  I was glad I had that chili simmering in my crockpot.  No rain all day, just clouds.  But after dinner, Joe broke off a tooth, so now we have that to deal with Monday.

Rainy Day in Spearfish

Friday - May 21, 2021

No sunshine today, and I never saw the temperature about 42.  It drizzled off and on all day, so we decided on a "down day" and just stayed in town.  We did go out for breakfast.  I wanted to try to download a new app to assist in loading my photos into the blog, and our internet at the camper isn't very good.  But I didn't take my plug in cord with me, and the computer died before I got that done.  We spent the rest of the day in the camper.  I messed with my computer download some more but never did accomplish my mission.  I will have to wait for Cathy to work with me.

I took a picture of our neighbor's enclosed side-by-side.  We see these around up here.  Joe thinks they probably have a heater in them too.

 The breakfast restaurant had a fish fry on their menu tonight and Joe thought that sounded good, so we went back for dinner.  It is just plain cold here, so he dug our new electric heater out of the outside compartment and got it going.  Now we are toasty.  After dinner, we drove around the town a little, in the mist.  We did see this interesting camper on the Walmart parking lot.  Joe thought our neighbor Paul needed it.

We spotted 1 deer in a yard, and we have ducks with babies in the campground.  And lilacs everywhere.  They use them as hedges here, and about every other house has some.  I'm loving it.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy, but no rain predicted, so we plan on doing more exploring then.  We have a fish hatchery right across the road from the campground, so we need to get that worked in the next few days.  This is a pretty town, population just over 10,000, but the interstate goes through the edge and they have about everything here.  The yards are all green and the houses seem well-kept.  We were told they are in a drought here too, but we see no evidence of that right now.  We will see what further north looks like when we move on next week. 

Sturgis, Deadwood, Lead

 Thursday - May 20, 2021

We headed east over to Sturgis this morning.  It is only 17 miles from Spearfish, on I-90.  This is also a lilac-friendly town.  It was very clean, most stores were open, but not all of them, and some of the bars were not open for the season yet.

We passed the motorcycle museum as we came into town, so that was our first stop. This was a nice museum, 110 motorcycles I think she said.  Here are a few.

One motorcycle of particular interest to Joe was this Sears bike.  His high school friend, Ed Williams, bought one of these back in the day.  He sent a picture to Ed today and resurrected some good memories.

More bikes.

He thought this "Smokin Joe's" was pretty cool.

Here is a picture of downtown Sturgis.  It's hard to imagine this town filled with bikes and people.

Across from the motorcycle museum we found some car art for our next door neighbor, Paul.  He really likes rusty things.  His wife, Sam, though, not so much.  He may have to do some bartering to get this.

From here, we took a road out to Bear Butte State Park.  At the turn-off, was this "CHIP" buffalo, but we don't know what it represents.

This is rolling grassland out here, but the Butte stands tall, over a pretty lake.

There was a row of birdhouses back here, on both sides of our road.  We don't know what kind of birds they were for, but we did see some pretty birds along this road.  We haven't found a bird book yet to check them out.

When we came back to the lake (it was very windy), there was one guy kiteboarding on the lake.  Another person (we think it was a girl) was getting one ready, but it was a little different.  It set up above the water about 12-18 inches.  We don't know if that was called something else, but she got up and going across the lake.

He got some air here.  

That was an interesting little drive.  As we came back into Sturgis from the mountain, we got a shot of the town again.

We parked on the streets, found some lunch at Uncle Louie's, then walked the shops a little.  Then we headed out to Deadwood, again on 14A, which is 13 miles.  We drove down to the rodeo grounds first, and saw this prospector's statue.

Deadwood is a narrow town, very hilly.  It is a casino town, so there were lots of people on the sidewalks.  But parking is a problem.  We drove around and around, but never did find a parking spot, except the public parking which cost $7.00, and one lot at the very end of town.  They have a trolley, so I guess that's how they move people.  I wanted to walk into one of the "old" casinos, but we will have to go back to do that.   Now that we know the town, we will have a plan next time.

We continued on 14A through Central City, (1 mile) to Lead (3 miles). Central City was a smaller town, so we just drove on through.   Lead is another narrow town in the hills.  We drove around and around, just checking it out, and ended up, to our surprise, back in Deadwood.  The only Lead sign we found was at the high school, but there was a mine in town, we don't know what kind or whether it is still working.

So we drove back through Deadwood, Central City, and Lead, and continued on our way.  We stopped at a convenience store the second time through Lead, and Joe said, "Damn, we've gone 72 miles on a 17-mile road trip."  That's how we roll.

 Our next side trip was up to a ski lodge, Terry Peak, which still had snow on some of the mountainsides.  The elevation here was 6,486.  We didn't drive up to the Barefoot Resort, though.

We finally got back to the scenic byway part of 14A that we were on yesterday.  Somewhere on this road we came across a bust of Abraham Lincoln.  We don't know why it is in this place.

Just as we hit the edge of town, Joe spotted a yard sale, and without thinking, asked if I wanted to stop.  (He had second thoughts almost immediately).  They had a lot of tools, some of which Joe considered but decided against since we would have to haul them around all summer in the RV.  But he had suggested earlier I might take the "loppers" to get my lilac bouquets, and they had a set!  I didn't buy them, but I thought about it.

We weren't on a hunt for wildlife today, but we did see a little:  a few deer (8-10), some prairie dogs (2 of them tried to race us in the car), a few antelope, and a marmot.  We got home about 4:30, having driven 110 miles.  Rain had been predicted about 2:00, but the forecast kept changing, and we finally got a little thunderstorm about 7:00 p.m.  Another fun day in the books!