The Great Road Trip of 2017.....Part Twenty Five/Day Nineteen

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Six of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Seven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eight of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Nine of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Ten of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Eleven of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Twelve of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Thirteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE  

Part Fourteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE  

Part Fifteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 
Part Sixteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Seventeen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 

Part Eighteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Nineteen of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE 

Part Twenty of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Twenty One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Twenty Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Twenty Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Twenty Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

We passed this sign for the "Vore Buffalo Jump".  A Buffalo Jump is how Native Peoples killed buffalo so they had food, clothing and tools(nothing on a buffalo was wasted and the buffalo sustained Western peoples for centuries).  They would find a herd near a cliff and cause them to stampede toward that cliff and they would just go over it and fall to their deaths.  An easy way to cause buffalo to die rather than the rifles and bullets that the Whie man brought with him to the West.

More information on this sight HERE.

Oh look!  More logging trucks.....a very common sight on the highways out this way.

Welcome to South Dakota!

The first Rest Area we hit in SD had this sculpture of the frame work of a Native American teepee.

We got off here to go to the old Western Town of Deadwood.

 Stopped for gas at the "Double Barrel" as in gun.  Nice name for a gas station selling liquor and having a casino inside, right? lol

I went inside the convenience store and they had all these gimmicky wine bottles.  3 varieties of wine with Mt. Rushmore on the labels, a bottle of Cab Sav with the infamous Full Throttle label featuring a skull and "Tickle Me" which was a Rhubarb Wine featuring a cherubic young boy on the label.  None of these left with me.

Then there was a standup display of Sturgis Pins & Patches for only $7 each.  Okaaaay.

Looking back I should have picked up a pin featuring crossed 6 shooters. lol

Then there was a selection of Pickled Quail Eggs for a steal t $14.59 a jar, with either Mt. Rushmore or South Dakota written on the label along with stallions and buffalo.  I took a hard pass on those.....lol

I also found more of those Snickers "special" candy bars.  Klutz was a good one I hadn't seen before and I found KIM'S candy bar too! hehehe

A "Space Cadet" squared.

Back to the liquor.....I found this "Ultra premium South Dakota Select Club" amusing.  At the bottom of the label, which is quite attractive, it reads, "Blended Canadian Whisky, Product of Canada".  Last I was told SD is not in Canada, nor is Mount Rushmore.

Then my heart skipped a beat when I saw this on the liquor shelf.....a Red Table Wine featuring the likeness of Calamity Jane(or rather Martha Jane Canary)on the label.

Though I didn't pick this up here, I did purchase a bottle at another location along the way where it was not so expensive. ;-)

Then it was back on the road into Deadwood.

We went around a bend in the road toward town and happened upon a herd, or rather a gang of elk right next to the road, bedded down.

Headed toward Deadwood and away from Sturgis.

Passing by Cadillac Jacks Gaming Resort.

Motorcycles galore parked here and a banner to spice up your breakfast with a Bloody Mary.  Ummm, no thanks.

Once in town we headed into the residential and wound our way toward the Mt. Moriah Cemetery because I am weird like that and like old historical cemeteries.

                                         

Hubs and I posing in front of signs for Mt. Moriah's two most famous "residents".

Wild Bill Hickok(James Butler Hickok).

Folks who visit Wild Bill regularly leave tributes......his "dead man's hand" of poker cards, bottles of whiskey and beer.  He was known to have red hair, just like me(thought mine turned brown as I got older so I dye it).

You can read more about this interesting fellow HERE if you are so inclined.

Buried next to Hickok, at her dying request, is Calamity Jane(Martha Jane Burke neè Canary).

It is said Wild Bill Hickok had no use for Jane in life so the men in charge of her burial did lay her to rest, next to him as the ultimate joke on Hickok.

More on Calamity Jane HERE.

This was an interesting headstone....."Potato Creek Johnny" aka John Perrett.  He is purported to have found one of the world's gold nuggets during the Black Hills gold rush.

You can read more HERE.

Joseph and  Dora Amy Du Fran's headstones.  Dora is the famous(or rather infamous one)of this pair.  She was one of the Madam's of Deadwood(employing Calamity Jane for a time), running a brothel.  Dora is said to have termed the phrase "cat house".  Her pet parrot "Fred" was also buried with her.

Alice Cary Swanstrom(neè Boyle)and her three children are buried here.  The children all died young, only one making it to 18 years old.

An interesting grave stone of a child praying.

In 1893 a section of the cemetery was sectioned off for burials of Deadwood's Jewish citizens, which was referred to as "Hebrew Hill".  There were quite a few Jewish movers an shakers in those early days of Deadwood.  Each person of Jewish descent was buried facing East to Jerusalem.

Ok, now tell me this grave markers isn't the most phallic thing you've ever seen? lol

It was a scorching hot day when we were in Deadwood but Mt. Moriah was shaded quite well so much cooler than downtown.  The cemetery was built on a hillside so quite the walking workout.

Back in town we went by the "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" luxury suites.  If those walls could talk!

Going down Main St. in Deadwood, SD

There were old fashioned wooden boardwalks(sidewalks down Main St.)

And more motorcycles than you could shake a stick at and all those bikers swarming in and out of every establishment.

We found out later that when we arrived in Sundance(Devil's Tower area)and in Deadwood it was amidst "Bike Week" in Sturgis SD nearby.  We had no clue.  If you are heading to this area be sure to check when this event is happening so you can avoid it.  There was nowhere to park so we couldn't get out of the car and walk around!

We had to settle for driving through town very slowly and taking as much of this sight in as we could.

But I did get to do something I had planned to do, given that at this time(2017)HBO had a hit series called "Deadwood" that took place here back in it's heyday.  The one thing about that series was that about every fifth word any character in the series spoke was the F-word.

I just had to make this short video, while sitting in the car driving through Deadwood, of my version of this show.

(If you don't like hearing the F-word, don't click on it.)lol

Miss Kitty's Mercantile, Restaurant and Casino.  The home of some very raunchy mechanical bull riding as well.

Saloons and restaurants as far as the eye can see.

A bike called "Boss Hoss" and not "Boss Hogg".

Another storefront where you could see "the Trail of Jack McCall" at the Wild Bill Theater.  I suppose it is a retelling of the trial of the man who shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back while he was playing poker in a nearby saloon.

We headed out of the mayhem that was Downtown Deadwood into the nearby town of Lead, SD.  It was a center of mining back then.

We didn't get a chance to visit the black Hills Mining Museum there before heading back out onto the Highway.

More adventures to come.

Sluggy