Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Belle Fourche and Rapid City, South Dakota

August 22 - 28, 2016:

We are back in South Dakota again for the first time since 2012 after a 200 mile ride from Medora, North Dakota to Belle Fourche, South Dakota.  It was mostly on route 85 south through miles and miles of wheat farms, cattle ranches, open prairie and grassland.  There are only a couple of small towns along this route, it’s a lonely open road.  At Belle Fourche, we turn onto route 212 for a few miles to the Rocky Point Recreation Area.  It's a campground on the Belle Fourche Reservoir which is a popular boating and fishing area.  It's only a one night stop for us as we have been here before.
We head off for a short tour of downtown Belle Fourche with the temperature near 100 degrees.  It immediately brings back memories, some good, some bad, but always interesting.  We find a great fabric / quilt store, The Bakery Fabrics, in an old bakery building. It was most interesting as they left many of the original bakery fixtures in place. There was the original wall baking oven, a 1950 calendar, the original bread racks being used to display fabric, the original dough mixer and several cabinets.  We then stopped in a antique shop filled with really good stuff at decent prices, we ended up buying a couple of classic old Chuck McMalloy books.


Real family fun ?


Downtown Belle Fource is the geographic center of the
Continental  US



A great old building on the main street that needs to be saved,
I liked the painted scenes in the windows



The Bakery and Fabrics shop gets my award for best
repurpose of an old building, note the old Tri-State Bakery
sign on the wall

The Bake Oven with rolls of fabric stacked in front


Good finds !!!


Tuesday morning amidst high winds we are off to Rapid City, South Dakota, sort of our official home base, where we plan to spend at least 5 days.  We find Rapid City looking more vibrant than we remembered from the past.  We were here for a brief visit in early September 2012 as reported in a blog post for Box Elder, South Dakota.  We return to the Prairie Edge Trading Company, one of the best ever shops for for quality American Indian art objects.


A beautiful building and fantastic shop


We are sort of regrouping here, getting our mail, doing laundry, banking, oil changes, car wash and shopping.  We have a full hookup campsite at the Three Flags RV Park, a few miles from downtown, very convenient to everything.  It does’t look like much, but they accept Passport America with no limits, have full hookup sites, laundry and a good shower room.  The road noise wasn’t bad and overall we would stay there again.

Rapid City is really a nice city with a vibrant downtown, nice shops and restaurants and with the huge Mall and associated chain and big box stores on the outskirts.


The Main Street Square area is a great spot


One of our first stops is the Firehouse Brewing Company


They have one of the greatest Hobby Shops anywhere 


Wonderful Indian Sculpture in front of Prairie Edge Store


Rapid City has statues of all 50 US Presidents
on street corners around town.  That's Jefferson
in front of a great old building



Great neon sign on the South Dakota
Stock growers Association



Lots of wheat farms remain


There is an Art Alley that is about covered with
street art of all kinds



They try and usually succeed in adding character
to the Presidential statues such as this one of
President Taft who in younger days was a good
baseball pitcher



On Thursday evening we went to downtown Rapid City for their Summer Concert series with several food and drink vendors, two stages with live music, and kiddie activities.  It was well attended, the music was good and was one of the better town events we have attended this year.


Concert at the Main Street Square


On our previous stay in Rapid City, we missed the Journey Museum, but not this time.  Happy to say it was a great one, not to be missed, one of the best all year !  They had a special exhibit on Mt. Rushmore that was full of information on the design, planning, construction, funding and politics of the project.  
  

South Dakota is a leading state for Dinosaur fossils


A painting of Mandan Indian Earth Lodges

Fool Bull was a legendary warrior



Dr. Valentine T. McGillycuddy was an amazing man.
Army surgeon, banker, educator, public health physician
and agent of the Red Cloud Reservation.  He also was 
President of the School of Mines and Mayor of 
Rapid City.



Captain Jack Crawford was known as the Poet Scout of the
Black Hills



Battiste Good was the winter count keeper for the  Brule Sioux
tribe.  His family recored in this journal for generations using
using one picture each year 


Depiction of Wild Bill Hickock's death, shot during a poker
game holding pairs of ace's and eights, which has since been
known as the "Dead Mans Hand".



I take a ride to Deadwood, South Dakota on Saturday afternoon to find that there is a huge weekend classic car show event going on, the Kool Deadwood Nights, with portions of the downtown closed off for a concert headliner by Gary Lewis and the Playboys.   There are hundreds of show cars, thousands of people and people have set up their chairs on the closed off street for about a four block area although the concert is several hours away.  They have a huge stage set up with lighting and a large viewing screen set so people in the rear can see the stage.  Obviously, they do this often, as it all looks very professional.  Deadwood with its historical buildings, casinos, restaurants and saloons is fairly overwhelming by itself, when you throw in hundreds of classic cars, a music concert and the resulting crowds it becomes almost too much.  Most people have interest mainly in the cars they had or wanted to have in their youth, hence the interest in 1960’s muscle cars and custom hot rods.  I’m a bit strange in that I am mostly interested in the 1930 - 1950’s cars and don’t care much for the muscle cars or hot rods.  I don’t know what the youth of today will find interesting in years to come.  I suppose the car show thing will just slowly die out, as todays cars basically are all the same and have no charisma at all. 


A small sample of the cars on display


This I feel might be the most interesting car at the show.  It's a
1920 something Ford with an original four cylinder engine
highly modified with many parts that had to be modified to fit.



Something about the simplicity of this appealed to me


Deadwood is full of beautiful buildings like this


I think some of these people camped out here overnight
to get a good seat


I kept going back and forth from the cars to the architecture


A classic South Dakota license plate


Stopped for a beer at Wild Bill's Place


The concert is started

$2 beersand cheap Sturgis tee shirts


The sidewalks are getting crowded


We can’t get over all the South Dakota license plates here, as we have traveled all over the western states the only South Dakota people we run into are full time RV people.  “Real” South Dakota residents don’t seem to leave the state ?  People are always ogling our license in other states like they have never seen South Dakota plates before.

Dinosaur Park in Rapid City is a National Historic Site, built in the 1930 by the
 WPA and quite a remarkable park.  It's mostly a children's park, but the statues are pretty cool.  They have this incredible store filled with inexpensive stuff that kids love, cheap drinks and ice cream, super family friendly.


Twinkles posing in front of a Traceratops


Up close view


Rapid City also has an impressive Convention Center and Memorial Park.  In 1972, the Rapid City area suffered a 500 year rain storm that turned small Rapid
Creek into a monster River overnight.  It washed away hundreds of houses, cars and businesses in it's flood plane with 238 people being killed.  In the aftermath it was decided to turn this entire area into park land.


The entrance to Memorial Park


The tame Rapid Creek


Rapid City Convention Center



The next stop is Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota,
Twinkles and Slick


Monday, August 29, 2016

Theodore Roosevelt National Park- South Unit

August 18 - 20, 2016:

We pull out of the campground past a Bison wandering around at the entrance to our loop.  It is a rainy ride south on route 85 through the vast Little Missouri National Grasslands.  This is the largest grasslands area in the country at 1,028,784 acres.  It is a mix of national, state and privately owned land, much of it leased to cattle ranchers for grazing.  At the town of Belfield we take route 94 west to Medora, North Dakota.  The entrance to the southern unit of Thoedore Roosevelt National Park is right in town with the Cottonwood Campground 5 miles into the park.  Twinkles arrives well ahead of me and has a campsite saved, not great as the previous one, but very good.
   

It was a drab rainy drive

We then ride back into Medora to the park visitors center, take in the movie and exhibits and Roosevelt’s original Maltese Cross Ranch cabin.  We also  check out the ruins of the Meat Packing Plant of the Marquis de Mores.  The Marques de Mores was a wealthy french aristocrat who founded the town of Medora, had a huge cattle ranch, built several of the town structures, built a huge meat packing plant and a Chateau for himself and his family. 


Roosevelt through the years

The Marques de Mores was another character

Roosevelts Maltese Cross Cabin

Roosevelts rocking chair

Ruins of the DeMores Meat Packing Plant

The old steam boiler

The town of Medora is quite the success story mainly due to a rags to riches entrepreneur, Harold Schafer, who make his fortune with Glass Wax, Snowy Bleach and Mr Bubble bubble bath.  He invested much in the town of Medora and started the Medora Musical in the 1960’s which is the biggest tourist attraction in town.  His holdings in Medora eventually transcended into todays Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation.  

It appears to me that the Foundation pretty much runs this town and that most of the merchants are donating partners.  Whatever, they are successful, people are flocking in to see the Musical, the Pitchfork BBQ, the Gospel Brunch, the Bully Pulpit Golf Course and soak in the Theodore Roosevelt legend.  Otherwise this most likely would be just another run down old town.


Massive old Cottonwood

Town Hall Theater where they put on a
daily Roosevelt performance

Medora street scene, still tastefully rustic, although most 
buildings are new or have old looking false fronts

The southern section of Theodore Roosevelt  National Park  doesn’t have as much wilderness as the northern section but It’s equally beautiful.  There is a 36 mile loop drive with many scenic viewpoints and trails.  There are several large prairie dog colonies, hundreds of bison and a herd of wild horses.  There is also a Painted Desert area and a Petrified Wood Forest area accessible through alternate park entrances. 


Painted Desert view

The clouds were spectacular along the loop drive


Great views were everywhere

Thought like I could reach up and touch the clouds

Bison rubbing against the tree

Every view seems better than the last


Bison crossing the road in front of us

The Little Missouri River

I went to the Little Missouri Saloon on Saturday evening where a country musician was playing to a mixed crowd of tourists and locals.  It was something for everyone with a poker game in a back room, Olympic games on one TV, Nascar on another TV and decent country music.
   

Cowboy Hats hanging from the ceiling and many dollar bills

I visited the Cowboy Hall of Fame and the the Billings County Courthouse  Museum.  The Cowboy Hall of Fame to my surprise also had excellent native Indian exhibits.


They believe this vest belonged to Chief Sitting Bull

Famous North Dakota Rodeo star exhibits

There are rows of championship saddles

Great old photos of legendary local characters

This is a "Winter Count" animal skin with a picture representing 
an important event for each year


Looks like a happy hour

Johnny Phill had an amazing life as a rodeo rider and actor.  In 
a rodeo accident, the horse fell on him, he was unconscious and
they thought he was dead.  He was taken to the morgue for storage
where hours latter he woke up and escaped.


I now know the meaning of a greasy Sack Ranch

Old wanted posters

We are now continuing south, next stop is Belle Fourche, South Dakota;
Twinkles and Slick