We started Day 6 with a brief trip through the famous small town of Sturgis, a sleepy little town which for one week ever year hosts the upwards of 400K visitors during the famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally - even this year smack dab in the middle of Covid. In fact, some studies have pointed to the 2020 Sturgis Motorcycle rally as one of the recent super-spreader events, possibly linked to hundreds of thousands of cases around the U.S... By the time we'd arrived in Sturgis, however, it was back to it's normal sleepy self, with nary a soul on the roads.
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A throne made of motorcycle parts in Sturgis
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We continued our journey to the historic Wild West town of Deadwood, South Dakota. This town was founded in 1876 in the midst of a gold rush in the region, attracting characters like Wild Bill Hickok, who was killed here in 1876 when he came here in search of fortune. His murder is a centerpiece of the town, which reenacts the events of his unusual story at the actual sites where the purported events occurred!
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Several of the characters who spent time here in Deadwood in the Days of '76
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| Deadwood is also notable for hosting the annual Days of 76 Rodeo, a parade and rodeo event that has taken place for 97 years! |
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Deadwood transformed from essentially a gold mining town to a sophisticated city in the early 20th century, bringing all kinds of international trade to the region, including Chinese traders, as seen here
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The Wagons and Carriages exhibit showed the evolution of wagons, from functional cargo and passenger carriers to luxury horse-drawn vehicles as Deadwood became more cosmopolitan
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Some funny masks
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The site of the poker game that claimed Wild Bill Hickok's life
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Part I of the daily re-enactment!
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After our Wild West history lesson, we continued further northwest. By now, we'd explored the southern part of the Black Hills twice, with visits to Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore, and we'd also explored the Badlands to the east twice. This part of South Dakota, I learned, is pretty unique since there are wildly different landscapes in each of the major directions. You had the prairies and granite needles in Custer State Park to the south, and the unique ever changing terrain of the Badlands. To the north, the landscape becomes very lush and green, as we would find out in Spearfish Canyon.
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| The Black Hills had actually seen its first snows the week before, but when we got there there was nothing but Autumn colors! |
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Beautiful Autumn canopy framing Spearfish Falls
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Some loggers
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| Roughlock Falls |
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| These mountains evoke images of China's Yellow mountains a bit... |
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Not to be outdone by the wildlife in the southern Black Hills, this family of mountain goats was grazing in the cliffs by the road!
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Stay tuned for our last day in South Dakota, next on Grant's Pad!
