In preparation for our trip my husband, Murray, watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the kids. This is one of his favourite movies, so he and the kids were excited to see Devils Tower which is featured in the film. I’m not a lover of science fiction, so I couldn’t bring myself to watch the movie, but nevertheless I enjoyed visiting this iconic landmark and doing the walk around the base.
After visiting here we headed off for lunch in Deadwood, South Dakota which Murray (quoting Ben Kenobi), described as a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”.
Deadwood (such an awesome name), was settled illegally in 1876 by gold miners and is a real Wild West town. Gold of a different kind powers the town today (there are at least 80 casinos here, including one owned by Kevin Costner). Whether you like gambling or not, it has paid for the restoration of the gold rush era buildings on Deadwood’s well preserved streets. It’s a fun place to wander around and every day during summer actors reenact shootouts on Main Street (pictured above), which are very atmospheric and entertaining to watch.
Adding to the overall lawlessness of the place is the fact that both Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are buried here in the Mt Moriah Cemetery. Just a few weeks after arriving in Deadwood, Wild Bill was gunned down while holding a poker hand of aces and eights, forever after known as the Dead Man’s Hand. The cemetery is built on a very steep hillside and is a fascinating place to visit.
The next day before leaving South Dakota for our journey east, we made a visit to a Minuteman Missile (this was a weapon in the American nuclear arsenal). For thirty years one thousand missiles were kept on constant alert during the Cold War. They were “hidden” in plain sight on the Great Plains.
And this last picture below is just a piece of travelling trivia! This pram contains two dogs who visited all the tourist sights with their owners and even came to breakfast in our motel kitted out in the pram! Have you seen any curious sights such as this in your travels!?
It was a dream come true to visit Mount Rushmore and it did not disappoint. I was amazed by the scale of it and the likeness to the four presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln). The Americans have a real reverence for their past presidents that is both touching and quite foreign to us as Australians. I was also inspired by the vision and nerve to take on a project like this and succeed.
We also visited the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is still a work in progress and when finished will depict the Sioux leader on his horse pointing to the horizon saying “My lands are where my dead lay buried”. The memorial is a moving tribute to the Native Americans’ dreams and plans for their land and their country prior to colonisation. Dreams which now will be difficult to realise.
As we were driving through the Black Hills a very loud flash flood warning sounded on all of our devices simultaneously and was repeated at five minute intervals. It was so loud it sounded like it was coming from a loudspeaker! This was very alarming as we had no idea how we should react to the warning. Should we stop the car or keep driving and where would we go? Not knowing what else to do we kept driving, except when the hail became so heavy we had to pull over!
The hail was so heavy and fell so fast that it looked like snow lying around everywhere. We were very glad we didn’t wash away in our car and managed to get back to our base in Rapid City safely!
