Close Encounters in the Black Hills National Forest

The Black Hills area of South Dakota and Wyoming are truly spectacular.  We love it here!!

Devils Tower

The drive to Devils Tower is almost as beautiful as the Tower.  It's just across the border into Wyoming and  was the first National Monument in the US (1906) .  Remember when Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977?  You can hear those 5 notes now......YEP Bob is pretty sick of me singing them (off key).  I thought there might a few left behind aliens on the side of the Tower but it was just some crazy rock climbers.  

Prairie Dog Town....awwww they are so playful.

Spearfish Canyon

Another amazing drive:  Bridal Veil, Spearfish and Roughlock Falls,  crystal clear water, the film site for the winter scenes in Dances with Wolves (you can just feel John Dunbar in the woods).

Deadwood 

Black Hills gold rush town established in 1876, named for all the dead trees in its gulch, a National Historic Landmark and a true old wild west town. 
TODAY:  Cute shops (many of the shops have bars IN the store!!), gaming in hotels, bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and gas stations.  I found Game King video poker and won 4 dollars.....almost doubled my money!  I'm back on a winning streak girls.  The Chubby Chipmunk is a fabulous gourmet hand dipped chocolate shop....beautiful and delicious chocolate!  Chubby Chipmunk = Chubby Richele and Bob.   Fun antiques and other "stuff" too.

Spearfish, SD

We had a great RV Park, the bronze elk is the only elk we saw though, great beer at Crow Creek Brewery!

Lead, SD

This is the place to visit if you are into Gold Mining and Physics.  The Homestake Mine was the most productive gold mine in the Western Hemisphere before closing in 2002.  Today the mine is the home of the Sandford Underground Research Facility.  It's the deepest underground lab in the US and houses many physics experiments in the areas of dark matter and neutrino research to name a few (mostly because I have no idea what any of the other experiments are)....OK you physicists, this is place for you to research more.  

Two disturbing things:

South Dakota Fatality Markers.  We finally figured out that the "X Marks the Spot" signs are the sites of road deaths.  There are too many of these signs!

The Vore Buffalo Jump.  (We couldn't even visit this site after reading about it).  This is an archeological site today.  It was a huge pit/sink hole that native hunters would use to herd stampeding buffalo into to kill or disable them for butchering. The site was active from 1500 - 1800 AD.  This pit is estimated to contain the remains of 20,000 buffalo.