For the next few days, we spent time in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I wasn’t expecting there to be so much to do in the Black Hills – it’s pretty commercial now, with lots of ways to spend money, besides Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. It was a fun few days, though.
My son is a rockhound, and we knew we’d want to visit a gold mine while we were in the area, so we took the 1880’s train roundtrip from Hill City to Keystone. The train was expensive – about $75 for the four of us – but it was an interesting route and it saved us from having to drive our motorhome up and down the mountain again.
The Big Thunder Gold Mine in Keystone offered an interesting tour, with a fun gold panning demonstration and activity afterward. We spent quite a while at their gold panning troughs along the river, before taking a walking tour of Keystone.
Probably our favorite stop in the Black Hills, though, was Custer State Park, which has a large herd of buffalo, antelope, prairie dogs and donkeys.
The rangers don’t allow feeding of any wildlife, but do allow you to feed the donkeys, since they are non-native descendants of the first settler’s donkeys. They were eager eaters of our apples
We also went “real life” panning for gold in one of the Custer State Park streams. Didn’t find any, though.
Trip West 2010 Series:
Badlands
1880’s Town -Murdo, SD
Black Hills, South Dakota
Yellowstone National Park
Family Search in Temple Square, Salt Lake City
Ghost Towns, Wyoming and California
Manzanar War Relocation Center
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
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