We went back to Custer State Park to drive the Needles Highway and Wildlife Loop on our last day in South Dakota. The Bison were still rounded up together, but we found them near the stables and were able to watch over 1000 bison roaming around together. We were able to find the boroughs again and I have a great video of Jim explaining that he does not have any food to one of them. I would love to come back to the Custer are to do some hiking and more exploring. We discovered Prairie Berry, a new favorite (local) winery of mine, looks like they do some Workamping, we’ll have to see how it goes 🙂 We finished the evening at the Buglin’ Bull where I had an elk burger and Jim had the Bison tips. (both tasted like beef)

Sturgis was not what we expected, but the Motorcycle hall of fame was really cool. We were here in the off season, so we got to walk around the town with vey little traffic or congestion. Deadwood is mostly small casinos, but the history is everywhere and the town had a really cool feel. We had lunch outside and then walked the town. We were incredibly lucky with the weather – we could not have asked for better, fall colors with blue skies and high 60s/low 70s. The drive back to camp through Spearfish Canyon were stunning, but pics were hard to get due to bug splattage 🙂

Wall Drug was interesting – I’m amazed at the marketing genius that seems to have built a town around a drug store. It was an eclectic collection of Old West and seemingly anything that someone found interesting, jackalopes, weird carvings, and Jurassic Park, as examples. We headed to the Badlands, which was really interesting because on the north side of the road is flat prairie with the South side dropping sharply to the Badlands geological formations that make up the National Park. The colors within the rock were yellows and reds and not like anything we’d seen before.

We headed out and spent some time at the Crazy Horse Visitor Center before taking the bus up to the base of the monument. From what the guide was saying, due to advances in technology and some pretty significant donations, they expect to be able to make substantial progress over the next decade. The carving continues to be a family affair, with Korczak’s grand children now working on the sculpture. We had lunch in Keystone, where we were relieved to FINALLY find gluten free taffy (eyeroll), then headed to Mt. Rushmore. We finished the day with another walk around Custer State Park’s Cylvan Lake.

We changed campgrounds (Custer’s Gulch closed for the season) so we moved, then went on a short hike while we waited for Pat, Glen, and Boyd to arrive. It was a 3 mile loop with cool rock formations and gorgeous fall colors.

We decided to take the steam train for it’s 20 mile round trip journey between Hill City to Keystone and back. The train was built to service the small mines between the two towns, bringing people and supplies and removing ore, taking it back to the main line in Hill City for transport out. We lucked out and happened to buy tickets on a pretty cool day. There are 3 steam engines in use in the USA that are similar, 2x6x6x2 (2 pony wheels, 6 drivers, 6 drivers, 2 pony wheels) with some other technical terms 🙂 This company has two of them and this was the first time they’ve ever run them together. The passenger cars came from all over, but were refurbished using period colors, stained glass, and 14 different kinds of woods, to keep them as period-correct as they could. There were train enthusiasts everywhere with special photo ops, people following the train and setting up at all of the 20 road crossings, buzz about the editor of Trains magazine being there, and a special event following the trip (we skipped the event). Because of the extra activities, the normal one hour, one way trip took us 2 hours on the way to Keystone, limiting our “layover”, so we were glad that we spent some time in the town the day before. I can’t figure out how to make video compatible with this site, so I can’t share the whistle sound, which was very cool. Also, we learned about the signal, the whistle sounds 2 long – 1 short – 1 long when signaling right-of-way as they come to a road crossing. This is Morse code for “Q”, taken from when the Queen of England traveled by steamship, the steamship blew the same code to signal that the Queen was on board and they have the right-of-way. Along the rails we saw old Morse code poles, that carried the wires, some deer, and old mining buildings. We ended the day with a burger at the Bumping Buffalo. Britt had a good day too, she got a hair cut/color.

We got settled in Custer’s Gulch Campground then took a drive. We found a couple more of the tunnels in Custer State Park then headed to the nearby town of Keystone, where we found Dahl’s chain saw art. Pretty chill day, just wandered around a bit and headed home.

First, Happy Birthday to Jim! He sacrificed his birthday to travel to our next destination, SD. On the way we stopped at Devil’s Tower, a huge … rock, for lack of a better word. It’s cool and massive, but my favorite part was the info plaque that gave 3 explanations for how it came to exist and said that we’ll never know. I thought that was pretty awesome. I have to add that the pics are not adjusted in any way – they look fake to me, but I took them and I didn’t adjust them at all. We did the ~2.5 mile trail (the pics below are from the walk around the tower) before finishing our trip to Custer’s Gulch RV park in Custer, SD. On 10/1, we did a little exploring in Custer State Park, driving the Needles Highway and the Wildlife Loop. Again, our luck held true, the approximately 1,400 head of bison who call this place home, were rounded up LAST weekend for their annual health check up. We found them, penned, on a hill on Wildlife Loop, but we were lucky enough to find a couple fugitives who escaped captivity. We were able to see a couple bison, some pronghorns, burros and some deer – along with some amazing scenery. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. The rock mix is quartz, feldspar and mica in granite….everything shimmers. Also, I’ve quickly come to love the combo of quakies and pines. Gorgeous.

We headed for Red Lodge, MT to drive the Beartooth Highway in south central Montana, a couple hours past Bozeman. As we have come to expect, things didn’t go the way we planned, for one, road construction in Montana is an interesting thing. They completely tear the road out for miles… you’re on dirt/gravel/potholes, on a highway. I’ve never seen highway construction done like this, we encountered it on the way to get the truck, and again for about 20 miles on this trip. When we go there, the Hwy was closed at the Wyoming border (Wy. didn’t feel like plowing the roads after last weekend’s snow). From the campground (Perry’s RV and campground – who does NOT have full hookups, regardless of what they say on the phone, but we did enjoy the site right on Rock Creek), we spent a little time in Custer-Gallatin National Forest, then were able to travel about 20 miles of the Beartooth before hitting the roadblock. We parked there and walked 3 miles in, far enough to hit some switchbacks and get to an amazing vantage point. It was pretty cool, being able to walk up the middle of the road, hearing the groan of the snow measuring sticks against the railings, and enjoying the fresh (COLD) wind. We then headed to the Absorka-Beartooth Wilderness area, right off the highway and drove about 20 miles of dirt roads, with stunning views around every bend. Dinner at a couple local places, LaPalmita and Bogarts (highly recommend the margaritas), was awesome. I’m really going to miss Montana – we’re going to have to come back. We could easily spend a summer in this part of the state and never get bored.

Last couple weeks were spent saying see-ya to Workampers, enrolling Tiffin in AA, getting the rig ready to move after 5 months of sitting still, and seeing Britt graduate from the Air Force Basic Military Training (virtually). Once she got her phone back, we were able to video conference with her, Ash, and M – and have a little fun w/ the filters.