Monday, September 22, 2014

I Own North Dakota

It was about time Ryan had a break from driving so I took the wheel for a while today.  We left Deadwood, SD around 9:30 am and got to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota around 1 pm.  The open roads and 75 MPH speed limit make for a fun drive.  I then slowed down to about 20 MPH in the park.  The park had some more fantastic views and crazy wild life.  Wild horses and more bison were on the road, including right next to a visitor center where you had to walk close by a bison to get to the restrooms. 




After a couple hours we got back on the highway and I drove into Montana so out of the two of us, one can say they drove in ND and one can't.  I handed over driving duties soon after but I hope Ryan enjoyed being a passenger in a National Park as much as I did.
We have also seen a lot of highway animal casualties during this road trip but today marks the first time either of us has seen a huge porcupine on the side of the road, We didn't know they ran wild out here.
It was a long day in the car but this sunset welcomed us to Big Sky Country.

Bears, Lizards and Sorta Eli Young Band

Today was our last full day in Deadwood. We've already extended our stay once and we kind of want to stay more, but unfortunately there's a lot of driving coming up so it's best we move on.

With our extra day, we decided to hit some of the touristy places around Rapid (that's what the locals call Rapid City, apparently, based on the one local we talked to who said the name of the city). First up was Bear Country USA. We left our passports at home but luckily they still let us in. It was kind of pricey for a 2 mile drive-through wildlife park but it was neat to be close to animals like arctic wolves, elk and bears. It's rut time for the elk so they handed us a flyer telling us that they sometime charge cars; thankfully our Kia Sportage wasn't sexy enough for the male elk to bother chasing. Recently seeing bison and bighorn sheep in the wild did make the park lose some of its luster but it was still fun. At the end, they had a pen full of bear cubs that you could walk around and that was pretty good since they were active. The enormous gift shop did put me off a little but I guess you only make money 4 months of the year so you gotta do it.




Next we went a few miles up the road to Reptile Gardens. Jess was quite intrigued since there are signs for this everywhere around Rapid City and when I looked at TripAdvisor, it got decent reviews. I will say that it did have a large array of reptiles but it was a bit smaller than we had hoped. It wasn't a disappointment but I'm sure seeing so many animals lately made it seem less special.




After lunch at a local place called TGI Fridays, we headed up to the mining town of Lead. It was an active gold mine from 1876-2002 and was owned by George Hearst at one point. Now that they left it, they do tours of the upper areas of the mine and the town that grew from it (the actual mine, 8000 ft. down, is now used for scientific purposes). Unfortunately the last tour just left when we got there so we didn't get to see much. After Labor Day, a lot of places do limited hours and they don't really tell you what those hours are. Even in Deadwood, yesterday seemed like the last big day since the town was half deserted today.

Our day ended with doing laundry, booking hotels for tomorrow (we decided to stay 3 nights in Billing, MT) and a little gambling. The Eli Young Band were playing at our hotel tonight and while we decided not to go since we just wanted to relax before getting up early tomorrow, we could open our hotel window and still hear the songs somewhat clearly.

Tomorrow we head to North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and then ending the day in Montana. As the Deadwoodians say (quoting Wild Bill Hickok), "it's a good day when you don't leave Deadwood in a casket." Note: no one says this.