When last we left our intrepid travelers, they were recuperating from having run 26 miles. Oh yeah, and squeezing the liquid out of blood blisters.
After we showered and rested, we hit the streets of Deadwood once again to check out Mt. Moriah Cemetery, where Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Seth Bullock and assorted other historical figures from the Old West are buried. The cemetery is on a slope overlooking the town, and back in 1992 on my first visit, I loved the quaint old stone marker on Hickok’s grave, and the smaller stone marking Calamity Jane’s grave (her dying wish, it was said, was to be buried beside Wild Bill). In 2002, they decided to spiff things up and placed a huge bronze pillar with a bust of Hickok perched on top. Wow, what a disappointment! There was a busload of tourists there when we arrived, and between them and the big head we had no trouble finding the gravesites. Beside them we found the grave of the (supposedly) last madam of Deadwood, Dora Dufran who is buried in a plot with her beloved parrot Fred (yes, Fred has his own gravestone). Getting to Mt. Moriah means climbing a pretty steep street, so we had to rest on a bench once we got there as our poor legs were definitely feeling the effects of the run. That pretty much wrapped up our day, other than another delicious meal at Jake’s, that involved much celebratory drinking and eating (yay! we didn’t have to run great distances the next day!).
Monday dawned clear and sunny (we really did luck out on the weather), so we decided to spend our last day driving along Needles Highway and seeing what was to be seen along it. One thing we saw was a cattle drive that managed to completely block the unpaved road we were driving down. There were a couple of people on horses attempting to keep order, and a guy at the head of all the cattle carrying a bucket of feed that he was sprinkling out to keep the cattle following him. One of the cows decided to take a short detour into the trees, and before the cowpeople knew it, all of the cows were milling about the trees, mooing and mowing down all of the brush. it took them several minutes to gets the cows on track again, and we managed to snap some shots of the cattle moseying down the road. All along the highway huge granite rock formations loomed around us like so many enormous sandcastle drizzles. The highlight of the drive was the Needle’s Eye, which really did look like the eye of a really big needle.
We had driven past several signs as we drove through the Black Hills advertising the Wonderland Cave, and after seeing the Needle’s Eye, we set off in search of the cave. The signs on the road indicated that it was around the corner – that was definitely not true! It took us a good half hour or more of bumping along gravel and dirt back roads to find the cave. It was very cool (literally – it was about 85 degrees outside and about 47 degrees in the cave!) and creepy down in the cave – we descended the equivalent of about two stories down a series of very steep stairs (ow, ow, ow! cried our now stiff and achy one-day-after-the-marathon legs with every step we took). After the cave tour, it was time to head back to the airport, but on the way we made one last stop: Bear Country U.S.A.! You pay $26 per car and get to drive through three miles of “lands” where different kinds of animals native to the area roam free. they recommend you keep your windows rolled up and as the bears ambled across the road in front of and around our car, I could see why. A couple of times Chuck rolled the window up on me, as I had my head and half my body hanging out trying to get close-up shots of the bears. There were some areas where the animals were not out, which reminded me of the scene in Jurassic Park when they are driving through the park and there are no dinosaurs, just enormous gates and fences. In the case of Bear Country, I think it had more to do with the heat – it was a scorcher of a day, and the animals all looked quite overheated. My grade for Bear Country: a C-. Kids would probably get more of a kick out it than adults, but I wouldn’t do it twice. So it goes.
Pics of South Dakota here. Oh, and the picture accompanying this post? That’s Chuck picking Crazy Horse’s nose.