South Dakota Week 2

 The major benefit of living in a  small space is the speed in which you can clean your entire living space (including, mirrors and windows) Zero to clean in about 30 minutes.  I love that aspect.  The most annoying part, (to me) is having to take stuff out of cabinets to find things.  That drives me nuts!

On Saturday, May 17, we took a ride up the 385 to visit Hill City and Deadwood.  Here is an example of the lakes you see as you drive these back roads

Hill City is exactly what you might imagine a small old western town to look like.  They are old and ornate.  Many of them have facades that look like they have been there for 100+ years.  There is a long wooden sidewalk under cover.  Most small towns have old time photo booths, antique mercantiles, tee shirt shops, and interestingly enough many have Harley Davidson shops, Subway sandwich shops and Dairy Queens.  Mexican restaurants are few and far between, and I think Taco Bell just might be known as Taco John's in SD.

From Hill City, we traveled North to Deadwood.   This town looks like South Dakota's answer to Las Vegas.  There are casinos and saloons on every corner.  We had heard that Mount Moriah Cemetery was in this town.  Ken and I both love old cemeteries, and this is where Wild Bill Hickock and Clamity Jane are buried.  It is a beautiful, well-maintained cemetery with lots of history.

Deadwood is a historic mining camp, built on a rowdy history of gold, gambling and gunpowder.

One of the reasons we headed up to Deadwood was to see a Neil Diamond tribute concert playing in town.  The band was great, and the lead singer, Surreal Neil, had the moves and antics down pat.  It was a fun concert and the crowd, old as we all were, rocked out!    

Our trusty GPS took us on a wild ride home.  The first hour was in pitch black on winding roads with virtually no other traffic.  It was sort of foggy and you honestly could not see farther than the length of the headlight beam.  I was a white knuckle passenger and could not believe we were the only people on the road.  I now know why they call these the Black Hills.  We drove 47 miles at about 10:30 at night and never saw another car.  It was out of the twilight zone.  The last part of this adventure took us on a 10% downward grade that twisted and turned for two miles.  The only saving grace was you could see light at the end of the tunnel.  I now want to take that drive in the daylight just to see what we missed!

We went back to the  Mount Rushmore Ward on Sunday and hung out around the park for the rest of the day.  I love kickback Sundays.  I read the final book in Richard Paul Evans "Walk" series today.  It is such a luxury to sit and read a book without feeling that there is other stuff that you "ought" to be doing.  I love my Kindle.

It dawned on me on Monday that I haven't been doing as much art as I thought I'd be doing on this trip.  I think it's because even though I packed a lot of supplies in the RV, things were not very well organized and when I sit down to do anything I spend a lot of time looking for stuff I want or need.  I decided to stay home all day, empty my craft cupboards and really organize my art supplies.  I know my artistic friends will appreciate the work and the pleasure that a task like this entails.  It took me the better part of the day, and a did forgo a trip into town, but I got it done.

On Tuesday we took a road trip to see the Drug Store at "The Wall"...Wall Drug Store is located in the town of Wall, which sits on the edge of the Badlands at "The Wall," a rugged barrier of tinted spires, ridges and twisted gullies between two strips of undaunting prarie.  This store opened in 1931 and almost didn't make it.  You can read their full story at www.walldrug.com  It now spans a full city block and people come by the busloads!  We had a Buffalo Burger here and it was delicious.  

The Badlands were nothing like I imagined.  I don't think the human mind is capable of imagining the wonder, beauty and majesty of this place.  The Badlands National Park contains some of the most spectacular vistas and scenery in the world.  Its geological and paleotological resources provide insight into climatic history and biological diversity during the Eocene/Oligocene periods.  Badlands also contains places of spiritual and historical significance for the local Lakota community.  Here is a sampling of the dozens of pictures I took on our visit of this most beautiful place.  I think everybody should see this in person...just sayin'!!!

The pictures don't even begin to do it justice.  VISIT THIS PLACE.

Wednesday was a chillax day around the RV park.  On days like this I like to bake or cook, read, watch movies or take walks.  Ken has been keeping busy removing decals feom the RV, working on an electrical glitch, going through his tools and tackel box and trying to fly his helicopter and kites.  Can you believe there can be too much wind for a kite??

Who knew??

On Thursday we headed Northwest to check out Hot Springs and Wind Cave National Park.   The hot springs in Hot Springs were a little disappointing.  I had imagined they would be like the hot springs in Mammoth, out in nature.  Not here.  They are enclosed in a YMCA type pool that was packed with elementary kids on an end-of-year field trip.  I can imagine this place getting a lot of use in the winter months, but as for me, my new bathing suit still has the tags on!  

The town of Hot Springs was charming, and some of the old sand stone buildings were beautiful.  Check it out:

  

We had a hankering for Mexican food while in Hot Springs, so we went to the only Mexican joint in town...Taco John's.  Somebody check this out, is Taco John's Taco Bell of the west??  (Like Carls Jr.  is Hardees of the east??)  

We left Hot Springs and headed to Wind Cave National Park.  It is one of the nation's oldest national parks.  It became part of the system in 1903.  The park began with the cave and some surface land, expanding in later years to the present 28,295 acres above ground.  Today, Wind Cave National Park actually houses two worlds:  the terrain and wildlife of the surface and the hidden labyrinth beneath the surface.  The cave system is one of the longest in the world, with 119 miles of rare and unusual boxwork, frostwork and popcorn formations.  Unfortunately, the tours were sold out for the day, so we didn't get to actually go down into the caves, but the visitors center was fabulous and the movie they showed left you feeling like you had been there!  The ranger gave us a "tip" about a gravel road running through the park that would surely take us by a lot of wildlife.  The term gravel didn't exactly apply, and for an hour drive, we only saw one other car, coming toward us, and we had to get off the road to let him pass.  The road truly is a one lane path through a prairie.  Check out the pictures of elk, bison, prairie dogs and the breath-taking scenery:

As we got closer to the edge of the park there were beautiful horses (here's one of my favorite)

This herd of cows, along with their cute calves, were right in the road:

It was a beautiful day.

Friday was a perfect day.  Sunshine, blue skies, gentle breeze.  It was a perfect day for an artist to sit outdoors and create.  Here is a sample of some ATC's I made on Friday. I used Twinklkng H20's to create the backgrounds and busted out one box of stamps and forced myself to use what was on hand to make art.  I am going to bling them up a bit and abandon them this week in Rapid City:

Ken did sit for a spell and put new fishing line on his reel.

Stay tuned for more living