More of the Black Hills: Deadwood, Crazy Horse and Mt Rushmore

The thing that will stick most in our minds about Deadwood is the gaming machines - the "slots". To us, it seems that Deadwood is primarily a town for those interested in gambling - whether playing the slots or playing poker. It looked like more than 80% of the businesses on Main St had slot machines - including the cafes and burger places.

We took a guided tour of Deadwood in an open sided bus - in the rain. The town is historically important and many famous names from the American west were associated with Deadwood. The most famous is probably Wild Bill Hickok because it is here he was murdered - shot from behind while playing poker (it was the only time he had ever sat with his back to the door). Wild Bill is buried in Deadwood next to Calamity Jane. It is a strange story. Jane insisted on being buried next to Wild Bill even though the two had apparently only ever met once and had never had a relationship. Wyatt Earp even made some money in Deadwood before moving on to Tombstone, Arizona. He provided firewood for the gold miners making around $5000 in one year, more than most of the miners ever made.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is simply awesome - much more than we had expected. You can see a selection of photos for yourself but the very scale of this endeavour is amazing. It began in 1948 with the sculptor (whose name escapes us for now) who had worked on the Mt Rushmore project and who was already in his early 40's. He died in 1982 but the project is continued by his wife and seven of their 10 children. Millions of tons of granite have already been removed (mostly blasted) and the project looks to consume several more decades yet. While the model of this work is Crazy Horse, the work is actually a dedication to the American Indian. To give some idea of the scale of this sculpture, apparently all four presidents on Mt Rushmore will fit on Crazy Horse's head!

We continued riding the Black Hills via Wind Cave National Park and Custer National Park - including the Iron Mountain Highway. We came quite close to all sorts of wildlife including prairie dogs and buffalo; we were almost taken out by a couple of deer springing across the road in front of us and were held up by a flock of donkeys.

We did not know what to expect at Mt Rushmore and were a little fearful that perhaps it would be an anti climax after the Crazy Horse memorial. It wasn't. Mt Rushmore is a national memorial so there were quite a few people there though the parking lots were nowhere near full. What can we say? Mt Rushmore is all we expected - another awe-inspiring venture.

Black Hills of Dakota

Sturgis is a relatively small town of a few thousand but swells to around 250,000 over the week of the motorcycle rally. It is nestled against the Black Hills of South Dakota and about 15 minutes ride to Deadwood and about an hour to Mt Rushmore. We rode Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills – yet another stunning piece of scenery. We also visited Deadwood – one of the original “wild west” towns best known perhaps for being the place where Wild Bill Hickok was murdered while playing poker. It is also the place Calamity Jane made a name for herself and where Wyatt Earp earned some money providing firewood to gold prospectors before he moved on to Tombstone.

There are a number of other fascinating places within easy ride of Sturgis also, including the Crazy Horse memorial – giant rock sculpture that is a work in progress, the wildlife loop road and a number of caves.

Riding the Prairies

We left Moose Jaw and rode south to cross the border. We had decided to head south from Canada to avoid bad weather further east and then continued south east for the same reason. Riding the Prairies has its own challenges – not the least of which is overcoming the boredom - because more often than not, riding in the prairies means long, long straight roads and flat land. The road kill was interesting though. We have seen elk, raccoons, a porcupine, snakes, a coyote, several skunk and a number of unidentifiable critters. Northern Montana and North Dakota are both experiencing an oil boom right now and there seems to be drilling or pumping stations everywhere, and this part of the country has wide open spaces and cowboys. It is also the part of the country explored by Lewis and Clark with the help of Sakakawea – a young Shoshone Indian woman.

After crossing back into the USA at a very quiet border post, we visited three forts in the mid west – Fort Peck, in Montana and Forts Union and Buford, both in Montana. Fort Peck is an area created by the US Army Corps of Engineers who built the largest earth dam in the mid west (if not the entire USA). Fort Peck Dam straddles the Missouri River not too far from the source and from it, generates hydro power. Fort Union was a trading post that promoted trade between the settlers and the local Indians. Originally, it was right on the banks of the Missouri where a river steamer would dock once a year. Nowadays, the Missouri has altered its course and is now about a kilometre from the fort. Fort Buford was also a trading post but also housed a company of US Army soldiers – both infantry and cavalry. Fort Buford is famous for being the place Chief Sitting Bull surrendered. Little Big Horn is in north-west Montana but we were already east of it when we entered the USA so did not get to visit.

The weather east was still looking dubious so we rode to Bismark, the state capitol of North Dakota. Again, most of the ride was through prairie land though as we approached Bismark, we entered some hills which were really scenic. After talking to some other bikers along the way, we realized that we were quite close to Mt Rushmore so decided to head that way. It meant heading west again – another prairie crossing and Jenny was getting pretty bored with these very long journeys. This one was different though, as you’ll see below.

We decided to ride to Sturgis, South Dakota (yes, hog country!) via one of the scenic by-ways. The scenery here was stunning – grand vistas, roaming buffalo herds, all manor of wildlife, great roads … actually we are lying. The first 70 miles or so (two hours riding) we were in pea soup fog and lucky to see 100 metres in any direction. The Navman once again proved its worth and for the most part, we were riding IFR (Instrumentally Following Roads) as opposed to the usual VFR (Visually Following Roads), as Ric used the rolling map function to see where the road went. Along the way, we stopped at what was the original burial place of Sitting Bull. While this site is marked, it is a simple monument and we did not linger as we were being eaten by giant mosquitoes. It turns out that relatives of Sitting Bull disinterred him from this site and removed him to another location further south. We managed to visit this site also which is just outside Mobridge, South Dakota. Thankfully we were out of the fog so were able to take in the vista at this more substantial monument to him – and to Sakakawea. From these two monuments, we had a journey following a road that was more than 200 miles long and seemed to have only three bends in it to arrive in Sturgis. It was long day – only 380 miles but it felt longer.

Medicine Hat to Moose Jaw

The ride to Moose Jaw took us around 4 hours and once again, it was really cold. While we managed to miss the rain until just before we reached Moose Jaw, we were really feeling the cold. We stayed at Capone's Hideaway - a motel on Main St. Moose Jaw was known as Little Chicago and is infamous as a town heavily involved in the illegal bootlegging trade. Al Capone had an operation there and made use of some of the tunnels (which workers had dug previously) to store the bootleg liquor and conduct business. We took a tour of one of the tunnel systems which was really interesting. Sadly, no photography was allowed.

Lethbridge and Medicine Hat

Waking up in Lethbridge, the weather was wet and really cold - a real change from the previous two days. We managed to find Fort Whoop Up as we reported earlier and then hit the road en route to Medicine Hat. We stopped on the way at a road side coffee shop to warm up and ran in to another couple who were riding a Harley and were as wet and cold as us. It turned out Dave and Laura were from Medicine Hat and we started talking about this and that. Dave and Laura invited us to stay with them but because we were not sure what were going to do, and did not want to put them out, we stayed at a motel. However, we did have a great salmon dinner at their home, prepared by Laura. It must have been good, too because Ric, who does not like fish and especially salmon, had two helpings! Following dinner, Dave and Laura took us to a country and western concert - the Wilkinson's were in town performing and they were great, as you'd expect from a family band that has a number of No 1 hits on the US and Canada country charts. Dave and Laura are two extraordinarily generous people. We were sad we could not spend more time with them but we wanted to out run the weather - as if we could! We did get to see what we cam to see in Medicine Hat - the worlds biggest tipi. We have a photo.