It’s risky to assume that anyone might be interested in someone else’s vacation. But I just returned from eight days in South Dakota—a place I’d never been—and am so awestruck by what I saw and did that I can’t resist writing about it.
Wide open spaces. A big, big sky and a horizon that goes on forever. Snow fences. Lots of fake tipis and some real ones, too. Sinclair gas stations with the iconic dinosaur signs. Amber waves of grain. Ribbons of highway, some with speed limits of 80 miles per hour.
My travelling companions and I flew into Rapid City, ate lunch at the all-you-can-eat Pizza Ranch buffet and proceeded to our rental house nestled in the charming little Black Hills town of Custer. Nearby Custer State Park was our first destination. Its 71,000 acres include rocks so massive you can hardly believe they’re real. Pristine lakes. Ponderosa pines. Wildflowers in abundance. Wildlife in abundance, including a herd of burros that ate apples straight out of our hands. We drove through the one-lane Needle Eye Tunnel, a fit so tight we involuntarily held our breaths. And we travelled a scary, winding dirt road to the fire tower atop Mount Coolidge. The view was worth it.
The next day, we crossed the state line into Wyoming to hike the trail around Devil’s Tower, which looks like it’s made of a whole bunch of gigantic dirt dauber nests glued together. Through binoculars we spotted the no-longer-in-use Rogers & Ripley stake ladder, constructed in 1893. This ladder began the tradition of climbing the 867-foot tall monolith that continues to this day. We learned the story of George Hopkins, who in 1941—just to prove he could–parachuted onto the top of the Tower but lost the rope with which he’d planned to descend. Planes dropped food, water and warm clothes to keep him alive until he was rescued, hale and hearty, several days later.
We took a 35 mile bike ride–from Dumont to Hill City–on the lovely Mickelson Rail-Trail, marveling at the scenery and dodging cow patties on the trail and in the tunnels. Near the trail we spotted an old barn covered in shingles and siding made from metal bucket lids. Those buckets once held cyanide that was used in the region’s gold mining operations. Whatever poison might have lingered was apparently of little concern to the farmer who repurposed the lids.
We spent an afternoon in the Wild West town of Deadwood, born when gold was discovered in a nearby creek in 1876. The town attracted outlaws, gamblers and gunslingers along with gold-seekers. It’s perhaps most famous because, early on, Wild Bill Hickok came to town seeking his fortune. Not long after arriving, he was gunned down while holding a poker hand of two aces and two eights, now known as the Dead Man’s Hand. Deadwood was also home to Calamity Jane, whose perhaps-unrequited affection for Hickok is evidenced by the fact that her grave is right beside his in Mount Moriah Cemetery. BURY ME BESIDE WILD BILL, the inscription on her tombstone reads.
Deadwood’s vibe isn’t all that different today. Prostitution was Deadwood’s “not so little secret” from the time of the town’s founding until 1980, when federal and state authorities finally shut it down. Without brothels, Deadwood quickly slid into economic decline and was saved from becoming a ghost town only when limited-wage gambling was legalized there. Today, it’s hard to find any establishment in town—from restaurants to historic hotels to tacky t-shirt shops–that doesn’t have at least a few gaming machines. And the bars are still filled with folks eager to toss back a few.
Our trip also included the Crazy Horse Monument and Mt. Rushmore and Jewel Cave and Wind Cave and the Minuteman Missile Silo and the Badlands and some other stuff. But I’ve run out of room. Stay tuned.
(September 7, 2024)