Today we spent the better part of the day touring the northern Black Hills. It is a beautiful drive through rolling hills and, what this flatlander would call, mountains! Unfortunately they are having the same problem with pine beetles that exist in the midwest, so many of their trees are dying. It is a shame.
The first town we went to was Lead (pronounced Leed). It is the sister city to Deadwood, as both are original mining towns. Frankly, there wasn't much in Lead. They actually have an open pit mine (1200 feet deep). But they are working hard on a $5M visitors center so you can't actually see much of the mine as the fences have you too far away to even see the bottom. I will say that the terraces they've made to the bottom of the mine are huge and pretty darned impressive.
We drove through the town of Lead itself, but they have the Main Street so torn up, you can't even really drive down it.......
So we headed on to Deadwood. It seems to be a much more thriving town. Not quite as touristy as yesterday's Keystone....... Here's a view down the main drag.
This is definitely a gambling town! Everyother building houses a casino. And can you believe..... we didnt't gamble at all!
It is also a town for more Black Hills gold jewelry and the obligatory tee shirts. Judy and I both found another gorgeous ring. This is mine......
Not the most expensive, but I love it none-the-less!
One of the casinos is owned by Kevin Costner. The lady in the jewelry store recommended his sports bar for lunch. And it was a great recommendation! We all agreed the food was excellent.
The bar itself has memorabilia from most (if not all) of Costner's films on the walls.... posters, costumes, etc. It was pretty entertaining to realize just how many crappy movies that man has been in. :)
On the way home, we had to drive through Sturgis, of course!
It actually is not at all what we thought it would be. From the travel shows about the motorcycle rally, it seemed that Sturgis is really just a wide spot in the road with lots of seasonal bars. It is actually a pretty good sized mountain town.... and you can tell from the businesses away from the main drag that there is a sizable year-round population.
We didn't stop and shop in Sturgis..... The rally was last week so I'm pretty sure that all the folks are a little bit weary of visitors!
Next year is the 75th anniversary of the Sturgis motorcycle rally and they are expecting somewhere around a million visitors during that week. Ack!
This evening will include a trip to Walmart...... we are campers and we MUST visit Walmart at least every two or three days to keep our camper badges! :) Then it will be leisurely dinner at the campers and a quiet evening. All that driving today made me tired!
No comments:
Post a Comment