South Dakota

Steam Engine Train Ride

After leaving our lonely campground in the Black Hills, we spent a week at the Elks Lodge in Rapid City. While there, we ventured back into the Black Hills to Hill City to ride the 1880 Train to Keystone and back. This is a tourist ride on a steam engine train, similar to the mode of transportation one might have taken in the late 1800’s. The ride to Keystone takes about an hour and then the engine is moved from on end of the train to the other for the return trip. There is no round table to turn the engine around so it actually hooks up backwards for the return trip. They told us this works just as well but does look strange.

The train makes this roundtrip several times a day. We opted to take the 10:00 am train to Keystone and return to Hill City on the 2:30 pm train. This gave us over 3 hours to explore Keystone and get some lunch. Amy says this was about 2 hours too long. The town of Keystone does have some interesting history with gold prospectors and the carving of Mount Rushmore located a couple of miles out of town. Being so close to Mount Rushmore has made the town quite touristy and if you are not into the tourist scene, you quickly find yourself wanting to leave.

Mount Rushmore & Scenic Drive

Dan had seen Mount Rushmore several years ago during a cross country trip with our daughter, Katie, but Amy had never seen the monument so we ventured back to Keystone for some more touristy stuff. The day was supposed to be nice but turned out to be cold and rainy (what else is new). We made the most of our visit and took the Presidential Trail hike which brings you closer to the base of the mountain and offers a variety of vantage points and unique perspectives, in some cases views where only one or two of the presidents are visible. This, coupled with a stop at the sculptures studio, made the otherwise mundane attraction far more interesting.

The sculptures studio included a talk by one of the rangers that described the process used in the carving of the mountain. Inside the studio is a 1/12 scale model that the artist, Gutzon Borglum, created ahead of time and was used to direct work on the mountain. The model has more detail in the upper torso of the presidents that did not make it to the mountain. Rock formations along with time and money prevented Borglum from fully realizing his vision on the face of the mountain. The tools and methodology used in creating the monument were fascinating and it is amazing that they had no casualties during the 14 years of work.

After leaving Mount Rushmore, we took the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway. This was certainly a gorgeous drive with lots of interesting turns and fantastic scenery. It isn’t, however, well suited for a long bed F350 dually but when that is all you have for a vehicle, you make it work. It actually did not turn out to be too bad until we came to the Eye of the Needle tunnel, a marquee attraction of The Needles Highway. The sign warned drivers that the width of the tunnel was 8′ 4″. Dan decided he better fold in the mirrors on the truck just in case. This was a bit nerve wracking because with the mirrors folded in, he couldn’t see where the rear tires and fenders were relative to the wall. We later found out that the width of the truck without the mirrors is 8′. This means we drove through the tunnel with a total of 4″ of clearance side to side. We don’t think we will do that ride again with the truck. Below is a video of our ride through the tunnel that Amy took on her phone.

The Badlands

We left Rapid City on Friday, June 7, and moved Wall, SD. We spent one night in an RV park to dump our tanks and fill up with fresh water before doing some dry camping outside the Badlands National Park. This also allowed us an opportunity to scope out the area without the RV hooked to the truck, something we like to do if we have the opportunity. The thought of driving down a dirt road in the wilderness only to find out there is no way to turn around scares us. We located a couple of spots during our reconnaissance that would suite our needs and we knew which one was our first choice. When we arrived early Saturday morning, our first choice location was still empty and getting in and setup was pretty easy. See the video for a nice overview of our site.

After we were settled in, we drove through the park to take in the visitor center and exited on the eastern end. Just outside of the park on the eastern end is a Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. We stopped here to learn more about the Cold War era and its impact on the area. It was a fascinating and informative stop that we highly recommend if you are ever in the area.

There are two other locations in addition to the visitor center. One is a the actual command center, Delta-01, that controlled 10 missiles in the surrounding area. The other was an actual missile silo, Delta-09. The command center was closed and actually required a reservation for a tour so we did not get a chance to see that. Maybe next time. We did stop at the silo which now houses a training missile. The cover of the silo is partially opened and has a plexiglass cover over the exposed section so you can look down into the silo and see the nose of the missile. The fence that surrounded the missile when it was active is still there and a sign says that any unauthorized entry to the area would be met with deadly force. We were able to get in and out without incident.

Sunday morning started with a beautiful sunrise that Dan was able to photograph while Amy remained in bed (see picture at top of the page). Who needs to get up at 5:00 am when they don’t have to! We did get an early start on the hike we wanted to do in the park, the Medicine Root Trail and Castle Trail, for a total of 9.5 miles. For the most part, the trail is flat grassland or classic badlands terrain with the exception of a few steep areas to get up on the grasslands. Going up wasn’t too bad but coming back down was challenging and steep enough that Amy decided sliding was the best option.

We extended our original hiking plans in order to take in the Notch Trail hike, touted to be the park’s marquee hike. Its primary attraction is a ladder constructed from cables with logs between them that is used to traverse a section of the trail. Again, going up this section was certainly easier than coming down, which can get disorienting as the angle of descent lessens. The view at the end of the Notch Trail was spectacular, making the climb up the ladder well worth it.

During our drive back to the RV, a storm was approaching from the west. Dan decided to pull into one of the many scenic overlook parking lots to try and capture a time lapse of the storms approach. Once he remembered how to set his camera up to capture the frames, he began to take a picture every 5 seconds. He wanted 5 seconds of video at 24 frames per second so a quick calculation in his head told him he needed 10 minutes worth of images. After about seven minutes the wind started to pick up and rain drops began to fall, so he decided a 4 second video would be good enough. You can see the results below.

Our plans for Monday were to hang around the RV and enjoy the beauty of the area we were camping in but a call from our daughter on Sunday evening changed all that. Our first grandchild, who was supposed to arrive in early August, evidently had set plans in motion to arrive early. We packed up Monday morning and made it back to the Rochester area by Wednesday afternoon. Our grandson arrived the following Sunday, on Father’s Day, 7 weeks ahead of schedule. He’ll have to spend some time in the hospital but is doing fine.