Monday, November 17, 2008

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

So after a good nights sleep we are ready to tackle whatever the new day will bring. It is a beautiful day - blue skies and reasonable temperatures. We leave Spearfish, heading southeast (yes this is back the way we came - be patient). We have decided to see if the Spearfish Canyon road is open down into the Black Hills. It is and a few pics of the scenery (there are more that will make it to Shutterfly):



At the southern end of the canyon is the quasi famous town of Deadwood with a cemetery at the top of the hill (Boot Hill?). Because of the famous people buried in the cemetery there is a charge for entry - we passed. (Have you guessed tomorrows question??) For those of you who pay attention to these things, Deadwood was the town in the news last week that received 42 inches of snow from the blizzard that closed most of the western part of SD (Interstate 90 was closed from Mitchell to the WY state line ).
Since the weather was so lovely we decided to try one of the roads back to Mt. Rushmore. To get there we had to go through Custer State Park - the state of SD did not honor our National Parks pass so we were permitted to drive through on the main road - no detours. This meant we would miss Crystal Lake (is there a crystal lake in every state?), but we were able to stop at Pactola Reservoir, which is a lovely mountain lake.
While still in Custer State Park, we were able to drive past the Crazy Horse memorial. We did not go in because we are cheap and the cost was $10 per person. However, we were able to get a picture from the road. We then turned onto Iron Mountain Road (which was open) and headed for Mt. Rushmore. Iron Mountain road is known for its one lane tunnels and interesting views of Mt. Rushmore.
In case you can't read the sign. It says: "Sound Horn". (Really).We continued on to Mt. Rushmore. It is much more spectacular on a bright day when there has been no moisture (we have been told that the in the evening when the lights are turned on, it is even more spectacular). Some views:
We now headed back to Rapid City for the night, but we stopped in Keystone to go souvenir shopping. We were not able to take Needles Highway (the other scenic byway - it was still closed)On to Rapid City and dinner at Fuddruckers. Decent hamburgers, but no local brews.

We are not done - in case you thought that the old folk had forgotten a question about yesterday, we didn't! It is: How many time zones did we go through yesterday? Bye.

No comments: