Western South Dakota is like a jewel waiting to be found! There is beautiful country, small, unique towns, and of course the Visionary Leaders: Presidential and Native American.
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| Mt. Rushmore, just outside a tunnel from the south...Click on the picture to enlarge it |
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| Crazy Horse Memorial, recognized among his own people as a visionary leader |
This is the route we took:
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We drove out first to Hill City, the oldest existing city in Pennington County with 948 people, from the 2010 census. Our goal was to see the Black Hills, to check out a RV Park just south of the city, and to investigate the
George S. Mickelson State Trail, a 109 mile rails to trails through the Black Hills with Hill City approximately in middle of the trail.
We found a nice park in the middle of town, with an old logging train on display, and the location of the South Dakota State Railroad Museum, with train rides an option! We walked around the park, and noticing a snack bar with outside tables and chairs, ate our lunch there with Rupert.
We discovered the
Mickelson Trail, drove back to the Visitor's Center to pick up a map of the trail, then drove out to a trail head at the edge of town to walk the trail. What a beautiful area! We decided right then that we would come back to this area for an extended stay!
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| Mickelson Trail south of Hill City |
We drove south to check out the
Rafter J Bar Ranch, and boy howdy, did we like what we found! We stopped in the office and picked up a map. There are 6 areas that we drove through: Main Camp, Base Camp, Line Camp, Ranch Camp, The Island and Lower Ranch Camp. We located our "best choice" site, and a few secondary choices so we can call for reservations for next summer. It is a keeper RV park, with a very interesting history!
What makes this park so special for us is that the Mickelson Trail can be accessed from the park. We can ride the 4 to 5 miles into Hill City, or ride about the same distance to the Crazy Horse Memorial. We love parks with access to bike trails!
On south we drove, to the Crazy Horse Memorial where we stopped for a picture. We will save the visit to the memorial for our next time here. We continued on our "loop" driving through Custer State Park, then through Mt. Rushmore on Highway 16A, also known as the Iron Mountain Roadway towards Keystone from the south. We had tremendous views of the "Presidents", several tunnels, and we experienced the pigtail bridges. We would cross over a bridge, curve,then back over two bridges, into a 360 degree over/under loop. We understood the name AFTER we looked at our "path" on the car's GPS!
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| One of several tunnels.... |
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| Pigtail Bridge |
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| Pigtail Bridge |
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| same bridge, just closer |
The view of the Presidents from the tunnels was especially awe inspiring! It was a presidential kind of day!
Roving Riders--catching up and staying warm!
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