Back on line after 12 days in the hinterlands.  Four days at Fort Robinson State Park in Crawford, Ne., and eight days at Custer State Park in Custer, SD.  Good visits at both places.  Had a neat stop-by visit at Chimney Rock on the way from Ogallala to Crawford.  See picture of the rig and the rock.




Of course we had visited the Nebraska Pine Ridge in the 70's - before Katie was born!  Not much has changed there in the last 33 years.  It was nice to see again.  We saw some nice archeological sites, including the Hudson-Meng Bison Kill site.  This is an archeological dig site that is exposing a huge bone field resulting from the Indians apparently running the Bison over a cliff.  Very interesting stuff. 

One real highlight of our visit to Fort Robinson was doing our laundry.  Yes, doing our laundry.  We found out that Crawford, Nebraska has a bar named Diamond Jack's, and they just happen to have an adjoining laundromat.  What a deal!  We even went there during happy hour.  We'd both be more enthusiastic about doing the laundry if we were always in Crawford.

The Black Hills of South Dakota was new territory for us.  Very beautiful area, and a nice place to camp at Custer State Park.  On our first day there, we took a drive on the Needles Highway through the park.  The "Needles" is a group of ancient granite spires that is all that is left of a much higher mountain range.  At three places on the road you are confronted with tunnels that, for the most part, have been bored through the granite.  They are kind of scary, as they are barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass through.  Good thing we didn't bring the HitchHiker along for the ride. 

Custer State Park is loaded with wildlife, including buffalo, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, elk, mountain lions, turkeys, prairie dogs, and more.  In addition to these, they have a number of burros who used to pull carts up to the top of Mount Harney (highest point in the state of South Dakota), but when they stopped taking the carts up the mountain, they just turned the burros loose.  They now just roam freely throughout the park, some of them begging handouts from passing motorists - see picture of the one who stuck his head in Kay's side of the truck and managed to successfully panhandle a cookie.



Two other highlights of the stay in the Black Hills were the trip to Deadwood, and the visit to Mount Rushmore.  In Deadwood we visited the saloon where Wild Bill Hickok was shot, and even stayed for a reenactment.  Basically we just goofed around seeing the sights.  They have numerous casinos, but we don't really go in too much for gambling.  I did lose a $5 bill in a dollar slot machine in the #10 Saloon while waiting for the Wild Bill shooting.  We also visited the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane.  Also on the same day, we visited the town of Lead, where there has been considerable gold mining over the years.  Spent a couple of hours at the gold mining museum there that included a "simulated" mine tour that was really quite interesting.

Mount Rushmore is really awesome.  It's a bit of a hassle getting in and getting parked in one of the multi-level parking garages, but it's worth the trouble.  The beauty and magnitude of the place is something everyone should see. 


Well, that's about it for this installment.  We are currently in Sheridan, Wyoming, where we will be for the 4th of July, and then we will be heading for Yellowstone.