Martin and Mason Hotel Deadwood

Then I drove down to Spearfish, So. Dak. Spearfish Canyon is in the Black Hills - so called because the evergreens on the hills are so dark green that they look black in the distance. Spearfish Canyon is beautiful any time of year, but is especially gorgeous this time of year, when all the aspen and birch turn golden. The gold trees are interspersed with the deep green evergreens ...

Today's drive was a lot better than yesterdays. South Dakota reminds us of home a little. Lots of mountains, trees and wildlife, beautiful. We made our way into the Black Hills Nat. Forest, and stopped in a old west town, Deadwood. Which is where Wild Bill was shot. Pretty much just another touristy town filled with shops and a few museums, which of course we ...

... I admire the hotel's uniqueness for being fashionably old, the rooms creeped me out just a little bit. How? For instance, the room that we stayed in was scary looking, and my sister rambled about ghosts and scary stuff! For instance, the bathtub was REALLY old and reminded me of the movie, "Psycho". Yeah, remember THAT shower scene? I had no intention of putting my entire body into that bathtub just to take a shower! No way! Not me! haha. It was interesting to see names ...

... and found out it was Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Apparently, they drilled in 1" grids to begin with and then chiseled the rest (after dynamiting the first large chunks).

Then we drove along Wild Animal Loop at the Custer State Park and saw white tail deer and burros (one came right up to our car window and nuzzled my hand). But most impressive was the heard of about 50 ...

... CAVE TOUR. I really didnt want to go in another cave anytime soon after the 4 hour tour in Mammoth Cave but this tour turn out to be alright. Only 1 and 1/2 hours this time but the formations were a lot different from Mammoth. After the Cave tour we drove by the Crazy Horse Memorial and them back to Deadwood for another night. We took it easy and just sat on the office's porch then went to bed early to rest up for another day of driving.

I went back to Badlands National Park in the morning for a bit more of a look around before heading off towards the Black Hills area of South Dakota and the old western town of Deadwood. I had watched the Deadwood TV services back home and had to make sure I visited the town itself.

On the way to Deadwood, I stopped at Mt Rushmore and also the Crazy Horse Monument. I am not sure why I bothered with the Crazy Horse Monument. They are still along way from ...

... I just left my car at the beginning of the town and walked up the main street. It was great fun except for one thing. The heat was oppressive and I got a little too much of it; ergo, I got sick. I had to cut my visit short. Life moves on.

... us round the table. They stayed until Steve got here and they then had to get the RV to Salt Lake City before flying home. Steve is a great comfort and it's good having a medical student to explain things to me. Hi everyone. By the time Dad was transferred here from Hot Springs he was really seriously ill. I spoke to a surgeon here who confirmed that Dad had a life-threatening infection under the skin called necrotising fasciitis, as well as a perforated bowel. So I ...

... the next town close by that we had spotted - Wasta. Wasta was slightly bigger but no more appealing. We continued East and stopped in Wall to visit Wall-Drug. This drugstore is famous to Americans and is now a real tourist trap. We first saw signs hundreds of miles away near Little Bighorn and as you near the place there is a sign every few hundred yards. Back in the 30s they were struggling to get customers - loads passed by and never stopped......so they put up a sign advertising ...

... and you didn't have a bunch of big rv's turning it into a big parking lot. And Beaver Creek was very basic, and it was full when I got there but I found a spot to park. But this was the magic time of the year-Sunday and the end of the weekend. By the time it got to late afternoon I was the only one still there. It was me and the woods and a little streamlet.
After ...