On Friday (11th) Dean and I began our Black Hills Trip (belated anniversary trip). We started off by driving up to Valentine, Nebraska. We also passed through Ainsworth, where my Mom grew up so I got a few pictures as we passed on through. We got into Valentine mid-afternoon and decided to drive through the Niobrara Park area. We stopped by Smith Falls (Nebraska's largest waterfall) and took some pictures. We got back to Valentine around dinnertime so we checked into our hotel and went straight to dinner. We called it an early night since we knew we had a lot of driving ahead of us the next day.
On Saturday (12th) we headed to Keystone, SD to see Mount Rushmore. Neither of us have seen it in 20 years so we were excited to see how it has changed. As we left Nebraska's beautiful weather we crept closer and closer to South Dakota's stormy weather. We were nervous that all our outdoor plans would be ruined. We counted each and every Wall Drug sign we saw along the way (47 to be exact) and ended up in Wall, SD around lunch time so we decided to stop at the infamous Wall Drug for a visit and grab some lunch while in town. We found a bench where I remember my Dad took a picture on our visit 20 years ago so I'm anxious to compare the pictures! After leaving Wall, SD we were back on track for Mount Rushmore. It rained up to the second we were in the parking garage at the monument and then it suddenly stopped and we got to spend an 1-1/2 hours enjoying the monument in beautiful weather. We were extremely impressed with the renovations done to the area. There is a new walking trail that gets you very close to the mountain.
After leaving Mount Rushmore we headed to Crazy Horse monument. We weren't as impressed with it. It didn't seem like much had changed since we both saw it last, and cost us twice the amount that Mt Rushmore did! But overall we're glad we stopped.
Now it was onto a scenic drive through Custer State Park. We saw some gorgeous landscapes along the Needles Hwy and some wildlife!
After the drive we began our journey to our destination city for the night, Deadwood. We got into Deadwood pretty late and by the time we showered and got ready for the evening it was 8pm and we hopped the trolley into town and ended up at Kevin Costner's casino Midnight Star. We had dinner on the 3rd floor at Jake's. Very delicious dinner! We visited a few casinos and called it a night because we had another big drive ahead of us on Sunday.
9.7.09 - 9.12.09
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