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July 7, 2006
Great Plains Roadtrip: Haverhill to Deadwood
On Monday we left Haverhill, IA and headed north. We stopped in two tiny towns, Ayershire and Graettinger, to look for the gravesites of some relatives on my dad's side of the family. The cemeteries were outside the towns, usually bordered on all sides by fields, making for pleasant strolls amongst the headstones.
The remainder of Monday was relatively uneventful. We spent the night in a deserted downtown Sioux Falls. Presumably most people had the day off in expectation of Independence Day. We walked around for a while and I got a few good photos at dusk.
On the Fourth of July we drove west towards the badlands. Of course no visit to South Dakota would be complete without a stop at Wall to see the world famous Wall Drug - a uniquely American souvenir stand which has very little cultural value whatsoever but holds a high rank in the pantheon of roadside attractions - the Zeus amongst large animal statues and other assorted highway oddities.
Our next stop was Badlands National Park, the point where the rolling prairies plunge into striated rock formations. We had all seen Mt. Rushmore before, as recently as last year for me, and we didn't feel like dealing with the Independence Day madness so we spent a quiet Fourth in Rapid City, the so-called "City of Presidents". They've commissioned local artists to create lifesize bronze sculptures of all the presidents. They're placed on the streetcorners in the downtown area and are a nice addition to the city. We had dinner at the Firehouse Brewery where I had a very good stout and a not-so-good steak.
We started north on Wednesday and had to stop in Deadwood. I'm a big fan of the HBO series so it was interesting to see the real town. It's not like it was during the Old West - many of the buildings from that era were destroyed by fire - but it is one of the largest historic preservation districts in the country. Unfortunately, most of the buildings are casinos. The main drag doesn't really have any interesting stores like Virginia City, NV does. We also visited Wild Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane's graves in Mt. Moriah cemetery before heading north to the other Dakota.
Posted on July 7, 2006 at 10:12 PM
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Comments
I was very impressed and entertained for several hours with photos. Thank you, Rose
Posted by: Rose at July 11, 2006 3:42 PM