#Gates50States

There wasn’t much about South Dakota we didn’t absolutely love. The people, the landscape, the wildlife, even the weather, it was all great. People in our area of the country always raise, “But what about winter in South Dakota?” Well, we do winter in gray, dreary, Ohio… how bad could South Dakota be? Also, we experienced a decent hail on two occasions in South Dakota. We still loved it!

To be clear, we didn’t take in anything in the central or eastern parts of the state. Certainly the Indian reservation and Native American history in South Dakota is ripe with history and relevant information to gather. Recall from previous posts our lament about the hardest part of this project being the fact that we have to say, “No,” to so many items in every state. The national parks and Custer State Park were top priorities, as well as a general idea of scoping out the Black Hills as a potential retirement destination for when Jenn and I hang up the DVM/practice ownership thing.

We took a bit of a detour from North Dakota to South Dakota, as Grandpa Dave really wanted to visit Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Truth is, we all wanted to take this cool place in, and we knew we’d not soon be anywhere near eastern Wyoming for a long time, so after our time in Medora, ND, we headed west to Montana, and then south to Devil’s Tower, then back east to Spearfish, SD, and then into the Black Hills.

A while back I watched Deadwood, the HBO series. Cool historical fiction, deplorable language, really cool screenplay and scenery. We drove through Deadwood on our way to our place in the Black Hills, and while I wasn’t surprised to see the town simply does not trade on much of what was depicted in the television show, it was kind of neat to see how they’ve retained the Wild Bill and Seth Bullock feel of the place. It’s mostly small casinos these days as far as attractions, but the gun display and demonstration in “downtown” Deadwood was definitely evidence that they’ve not given up on their independent, libertarian roots.

Jenn landed us a wonderfully spacious log cabin just north of Hill City which offered great proximity to Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park and Badlands National Park. The kids were ready for a bit of a hiking break, so we visited Mount Rushmore our first morning in South Dakota, and then took a swim/canoe/paddle board/walk in Custer State Park at Sylvan Lake. The rental process was pretty straightforward for canoes, kayaks and paddle boards at the general store, and they limit the crafts on the water. On a busy day, you may have to wait your turn.

Grandma Laura and Grandpa Dave hike the Sunday Gulch Trail while the kids were in the water, and it proved to be their favorite hike of the trip! (Check out the comments on AllTrails, they’re pretty good.)

Jenn and Grandpa Dave drove most of the hiking research and decision-making, and they’d learned Black Elk Peak is the highest point between the Rocky Mountains and the French Pyrenees. So off to Black Elk Peak we went, and Little Devil’s Tower was on the way, so Jenn, Grandpa Dave and I did that one, too. Good thing, too, as LDT would have been a bit much for the young kids to navigate. Jenn highly recommends heading up via Trail #9 but coming down via Trail #4 which allows the side trip to Devil’s Tower. Slightly differently scenery on the way back and a loop is always better than an out-n-back in our opinion.

At the top of Black Elk Peak sits a fire tower constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the whole time we were up there, which wasn’t that long because it was cold and windy, we were thinking, “Wow! Those guys hiked up there with all of their tools and gear and lived up there while they built that place.”

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that having seen a good amount of wildlife in Yellowstone and Glacier, but missing out on seeing mountain goats, moose and big horn sheep, we’d relegated these animals to the list that also includes leprechauns and unicorns. So it was an amazing surprise to see mountain goats as we drove through The Needles in Custer State Park!

We drove the Wildlife Loop through Custer State Park during the early afternoon time, admittedly not the ideal time to see wildlife, but we weren’t too disappointed. Of course, it’s difficult to count the donkeys as wildlife. They roam through the park, but they’re quite habituated to people.

How did we spend the next day recovering from this 7+ miles of hiking? By driving to Badlands National Park! Sure, there’s no good farming, development nor mining to be done in the Badlands of South Dakota, but the place is really pretty to behold. We visited on a cloudy day, which kept the heat at bay and it was fine with us.

Of course we had to visit the Door and the Notch. They’re just off the side of the road not to far from the entrance to the park, and the views are amazing.

For a bit of a longer hike, we chose Saddle Pass to Medicine Root to the Castle trail, making a loop out of a couple of trails.

After a steep, gravely climb up to the plateau, the following loop gave us a view of the Badlands that one doesn’t get from the road, and the big horn sheep that ran very close to us on the trail were icing on the cake.

Having read about the elusiveness of the big horn sheep, we were amazed to have such an encounter with them deep into the trail. Little did we know we’d have another encounter with a larger herd on our drive out of the park!

On the way home from Badlands, we stopped at Wall Drug. Oh, my. Let’s just say it’s not our family’s style. It was too hectic for Jenn, and even Lincoln asked her, after perusing the different rooms/shops for about 5 minutes, “Can I wait outside?” I guess it’s one of those things you kind of have to do when you’re driving through that area of South Dakota, but trust me, you life will not be incomplete if you don’t make a stop at Wall Drug. We got a Wall Drug-branded jackalope patch, a bumper sticker, and were on our way.

I’ve got to give a big shout-out to Miner Brewing Company in Hill City. This outfit was as friendly as they come, and they made some really, really good brews. The ladies had a tasting at Miner’s sister company, Prairie Berry Winery. There were definitely some unique wines made from native South Dakota chokecherries, rhubarb and currants. The dry reds couldn’t compare to a quality Napa Cab but if you’re in the mood for semi-sweet wine, definitely check out Prairie Berry.

It’s difficult to top Custer State Park, and Badlands National Park is so unique, therefore it was hard to know what to expect out of Wind Cave National Park, though my friend, Bob Hallstrom, who seemingly has been to every cool nature place in the country told me we would encounter as good of wildlife at Wind Cave as we did at Yellowstone with a fraction of the crowd. He wasn’t wrong.

Interestingly, though, we didn’t see much wildlife on our hikes in Wind Cave, but mostly from the road. No complaints, the wildlife doesn’t follow a schedule, but because we arrived to the park very early, we had the Rankin Ridge trail to ourselves…

… and because we took the dirt road waaaayyyy far off the paved road, we had Boland Ridge to ourselves, as well.

Unfortunately, the cave portion of the park was still closed. Apparently, it was closed as the elevator was being repaired, but now 10 months later, we’re not quite sure what the story is. And Covid. It was clear to us, though, we didn’t need to visit the underground portion to appreciate the beauty of Wind Cave National Park. The solitude we experienced being miles from anyone else was pretty special.

On the way out of South Dakota, as we drove through Hot Springs, The Mammoth Site caught our attention. (Although Jenn is a huge, over-the-top planner, she usually schedules some down time to fit things in as we discover them along the way.) Oh, my, is this place cool. They’ve built a structure around a real, live fossil dig and we got to see it in action. You can visit their website to get the full information, and it’s worth pointing out their self-guided tour via their app is first class. I’ll only add here that we were thoroughly impressed with their operation and how they presented themselves.

Hungry for lunch, we ran into the getting-out-of-church crowd at what was formerly Daily Bread Cafe (I can’t recall the name at the time of this writing). It took a while for our meal to arrive, but it was really good. Check it out if you’re in the area, as it’s still searchable on TripAdvisor under the old name.

Oh, South Dakota, we’ll be back. We’ve started looking at property to purchase, and we just might call you HOME in the not-too-distant future.