The Baaaaad........Badlands!

The above picture once again makes us wonder whether some of our family and friends are leading a double life!


APRIL 21, 2008

Last night we ended up in Deadwood SD and decided to stay at another downtown restored hotel, the Franklin, where Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft once stayed. To cap it off, there’s a casino on the first floor where Peter found $2 black jack tables! We strolled around Deadwood, a town created during the Gold Rush, where Wild Bill Hickok was shot to death in Saloon #10. We actually saw the chair in which he was sitting when Jack McCall killed him! He’s buried in a local cemetery along side “Calamity Jane!” The whole place has the air of an authentic old west town although almost all of the establishments on the main street are now casinos.

We stopped in one casino that had a collection of Hollywood cars: an Aston Martin used in one of the James Bond films, one of the “Herbie” VWs, a 1983 red Ferrari 308 GT used in “Magnum PI,” a 1977 black Trans Am used in “Smoky and the Bandit,” one of the jeeps used in the TV show “Mash,” Evil Knievel’s first stunt motor cycle and a few other Hollywood items. We had dinner in the Gem Palace, built on the spot of the original Gem Palace that had been owned by Al Schweirgen (spelling?) who was the lead character in the HBO series “Deadwood.”

Since there’s so much to see in the area, we decided to stay there another night and headed out this morning for Badlands National Park. We keep thinking we’ve seen it all when suddenly something new turns up! The Badlands is a wide area of grassy plains with canyons, mesas, buttes, gorges, pinnacles and precipices all in muted colors. The whole place is pretty eerie and beautiful at the same time. Frank Lloyd Wright described is as “an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere…….an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.” We saw a fabulous 20 minute movie about the park and the wildlife contained within it: lots of prairie dogs, ferrets, buffalo, pronghorn, colorful birds (we saw a magpie and a bluebird), big horn sheep and others.

As we drove the 31 miles through the park, we were struck by how similar but also very different the landscape is from others we’ve seen on this trip. The grasslands led right up to the edge of the gorges and were also evident along the base of the gorges and at the top of the mesas. Just as we were about to exit the park ,we encountered Prairie Dog Town. They were everywhere, sunning themselves, scurrying around and squeaking. What a sight! If you saw this in your backyard, you’d immediately call the exterminator but here, in the prairie grasslands, they’re right at home.

On our trip back to Deadwood we stopped at the world famous Wall Drug, started in the 30s using the gimmick of free ice water in an arid, hot area. It’s grown to an acre large emporium where the ice water is still free and coffee sells for five cents a cup. Like South of the Border in the Carolinas, it’s a tourist trap but has lots of Western “stuff,” much of it made in China!

Before arriving in Deadwood to call it a night, we drove the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway (Route 14A), just off Interstate 90 and the plains and grasslands. We were, again, in another world: snow everywhere, a beautiful waterfall, Bridal Veil Falls, beautiful log cabin winter (and summer, I guess) homes, lots of deer, a meandering river with white water and gently glowing waters, high canyons and mountain tops. We keep waiting to see some elk but, so far, no dice! This is a winter recreation area, ski lift and all! This is Kevin Costner country; he owns a casino/restaurant near here and a lot of “Dances with Wolves” was filmed near here. Wonder if he owns one of these beautiful mountain homes in the Canyon?! We drove through the town of Lead, bigger than Deadwood and a rural ski resort town. Tomorrow we’re off to Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial before driving through Nebraska.