Sept 2   Labor Day weekend starts

Sept 3 Off to Sturgis.  We had been told there was a Mustang Rally in Sturgis over Labor Day weekend and that sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon.  Surges is a very small town and there were three blocks of Main street with mustangs parked side by side.  I know people who love this car and I can appreciate a lot of them, but there were some pretty homely mustangs through the years, especially the mid 70's and then there was the fastback, UGH (IMHO)

After a long block of checking out the cars we headed over to the motorcycle museum Hall of Fame,
Really interesting motorcycles, from the motorized bicycles to the enormous Harley

We headed home via the Vanocker Canyon,  this was a really nice drive.  We just pull over and let the speedsters pass as we enjoy the quiet and the scenery.


Sept 4  The biggest Camping world


Sept 5 Monday  Tonight as we lay in bed with the window open, we heard a new sound, coyotes.

Sept 6  Well we are moving to Hulett WY today.  Its just 80 miles westish and we get packed up and sorted out and headed off.  We'll be back to the deer and the turkeys and the coyote and the bunnies.

The drive is off the main highway most of the way and the scenery varies as we pass rolling hills and into forested hills and then as we round one corner we get our first peek at the tower.  It really is unique. We arrive a little too early to check-in so we go find a local eatery and have a very good pizza.  Then we go check-in to the Hulett Motel, our chalet isn't quite ready so we get a recommendation to go see the Crook County museum.  This is a terrific little museum, the history of the area, the artifacts range from dinosaur bones to rifles, Indian beadwork clothes to butter churns and pictures of all 15 of the forts that one time dotted Wyoming.

Sept 7 Devils Tower day.

 The really is an awesome site, from the first curve
of the road that presents you with the first view to the differing views as you walk around the base and see this tower from all angles, well almost all angles, we watch the climbers all over the tower and while I can appreciate what they are doing, I have NO interest in doing that.



Sept. 8  WE head on down to  Deadwood for the next 4 days, but first it is the drive, we cut off I-90 at Spearfish, have a nice breakfast and take the road through Spearfish canyon, another gorgeous drive.  Absolutely beautiful.  Our first 2 days in the area we are at a little campground called Fish n Fry and a little log cabin.  The cabin is really a cute little stay, it is cosy and the campground has a nice cafe where we can start the day off with breakfast and end it with dinner.

 We took off the first day and went up to Lead and stopped at the Sanford Research facility visitor Center.  This is (was) the Homestake Mine, and the open pit behind the visitors center is a huge hole in the ground.  They offered a tour and we signed up.  The history of the Mine is a very interesting story. After George Hearst bought the original claim and started the huge process off it had quite an impact of the area for over a hundred years.  Now it is all focused on research.

Sept 9  The next day we go back to Lead to go to the museum and get to go down in a simulated mine shaft and get a tiny feel for all the work that went on as they wrested billions of dollars in gold out of the ground.  There is a museum just beyond deadwood called Tanaka Story of the Bison.  This is another different Museum, but the bronze sculptures are amazing.  The life-sized sculptures depict a Bison jump, three indians on horseback driving the bison over the edge of a sinkhole.  The action is vivid.  Our cameras are all in the car.  We decide to go back to the campground and have a quiet dinner, and while we are sitting there the owner presented us with a space heater,  what a thoughtful act, we now knew that the temperature was going to drop that night and it did, we had frost on the pumpkin and we are not ready for this!

Sept 10  We move into Deadwood Proper, a little hotel on the edge of town, but on the way in we stop at Mt. Moriah Cemetery.  The graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.  We wonder around the cemetery for awhile, it is interesting how the history of an area can be revealed in the headstones of a cemetery.

We stopped for a Chai Latte in town and then went over to the Days of 76 Museum.  Now this wasn't exactly what we expected for the days of 76.  The whole first floor of the museum is about the local celebration of the "days of 76"  sort of a museum to honor the celebration of the events that spawned the town.  But the basement!  be sure to take in the basement.  Here is where they store all the vehicles used in the parade every year, they are restored and it is really walking through history of transportation to and in the black Hills.  We were told that when they started looking for the historical vehicles they turned up in back yards and barns and all over the area.  One of my favorites was the beer wagon,  an early 5th wheel, designed to make the tight turns needed to deliver the barrels to the back doors.  Then we could see the same design used on the hearses. Having been up to the cemetery we knew they needed to make tight turns up on the hill also.  The admission price was worth the tour of the basement.

Sept 11   Our full day in deadwood.  We wander on downtown and get advice for a cafe to have breakfast and it was a good breakfast, then we start the walking tour of the town at the Adams house museum.  This museum tells the tail of Deadwood and we spend several hours reading and looking at pictures, and paraphernalia.  We aren't much into gambling so Deadwood isn't really our cup of tea.  We have a nice dinner at a hotel restaurant and head back to the hotel to pack for tomorrow.

Sept 12  On to the Badlands.  We head out to Wall, SD and thought about having lunch, until we saw the lines, oh my!  so a quick stop at DQ took care of lunch.   We decide to cut south from here and head on into the badlands and take a full drive through on our way to interior.  The wildlife is out as well as the rainclouds.

We get checked in and get this gorgeous rainbow.  The scenery out here is so very different from what we have been seeing in South Dakota and we just keep taking it in.

Sept 13  We are up early and take a full circle drive through the Badlands again, this time we cut off on a dirt rad and go out to several overlooks, then just continue driving around the park and out the south side, make another circle and head back to our hotel.  The weather has stayed overcast and dark the whole day, but it gives a different quality to the colors here.

Sept 14 We head back to Elk Creek today, but first we stop at the Minuteman Missile National
Historic Site on I-90.  They have saved 1 command center and 1 missile silo from demolition.  So first we stop at park headquarters to get our tickets.  The tickets are free but very limited.  We arrived at 7:30 and the doors open at 8, and there are already 10 people ahead of us.  We get tickets for the 9:15 tour so we have about an hour to tour the exhibits all about the cold war and the use of missiles as deterrents.  When you actually see the number of missiles that the US and the USSR had to blow each other up it staggers the mind.  An hour later we are sitting at the gate to Delta-01 Launch Control Facility and we get to see how the personnel who manned and maintained these facilities lived, on alert 24 hrs a day.  A security crew at ground level to secure the facility and a launch crew underground controlling 10 missile silos.  An hour later we were another 10 miles west looking at Delta-09 missile Silo.  This is a self guided tour.  You call a number on your cell phone and then push numbers to hear the explanation of what you are looking at.  After a quick and underwhelming lunch at Wall Drug we head on back to Americas mailbox to pick up our mail and then back to Elk Creek to check back into our little cabin on the hill....It almost feels like home.