Custer area ride & Mammoth Site

The first shot is Chief Sitting Bull, and I will admit that I am more impressed with that mountain than Mt Rushmore.  The fourth shot is of Rapid City as we approached it from the south.  The two in the middle just shows what the area looks like.
We were scouting out a back entrance to the buffalo roundup but it didn't pan out so we continued on to Hot Springs and the Mammoth Site where 26,000 years ago woolly mammoths were trapped in a pool along with other critters of the time.  Their bones were discovered in 1974 during excavations for a housing development.  The site is now enclosed and the dig continues, it is estimated that they have only gone down about a quarter of the way to the bottom of the pit.
These animals were VERY big, I was impressed when standing under a skeleton.

Deadwood, Lead & Spearfish Canyon

Today we went about an hour north to Lead to checked out the huge 8000 foot deep Homestake gold mine.  George Hurst bought it for $70K in 1877.  It produced 40 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver.  Big bucks!  It's been closed since 2002 but we got a good view from an observation deck.  There are also deep shafts going underground.  The nifty large house is across the street from the mine. 

We then went to Deadwood, 5 miles if that, and hiked up to Calamity Jane's and Wild Bill's graves to pay our respect.  Boy, this is hilly country.

We returned home via the Spearfish Canyon and I'd have to say it was a spectacular drive with the trees turning yellow and gold.

Bye bye Custer, hello Hermosa

Here's a group picture of most all the Custer, SD rally attendees.  We have now moved 22 miles through Custer State Park to Hermosa where we'll spend 9 nights (at a campground half the price of Custer) waiting for the annual Custer State Park buffalo roundup.  They do this to ensure the buffalo are healthy, branded and reduce the herd to about 1000 which the park can support over the winter.  The animals that are removed are sold to private buffalo ranches in the US and Canada.

Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, SD

One of our friends was stationed at Ellsworth AFB and while at the rally attended a reunion there.  He arranged for all of us to have a tour of the base while we were there for the museum.  Several B1B bombers took off while we were there and they ARE LOUD!  In the third picture we were on a bus that took us out to one of the flight lines while on our way to watch a crew practice loading bombs.  The fourth picture is the business end of these planes.

 

In talking with these servicemen they told us that the actual loading takes place outside....no matter the South Dakota weather.  When some of their planes flew to Iraq they were doing this in the middle of winter outdoors.  They told us it takes them 3 hours to load a bomber, and the pilot 3 seconds to unload it.

We also got to go down into a Minuteman silo plus see and talk with some ordnance disposal specialists, all have been in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.  They demonstrated their robot and showed us some of the original and new IEDs used by the bad guys.  When the US develops better mine detectors the bad guys revise their IEDs.  The current IED is a 4 gallon red plastic container full of homemade explosives.  The bad thing is there are thousands of these containers with fuel, cooking oil, and anything you can think of all over Afghanistan, everyone uses them for legitimate purposes.

1880 Train

Judy, being the organizer that she is, set up the 1880 Train ride from Hill City to Keystone then return after 3 or 4 hours in Keystone.  I think most all of the rally attendees went, we even had a car all to ourselves.  Since we had a few hours to kill in Keystone we did a little shopping but a lot or time spent socializing at the Emporium where the beer was cold and cheap.  We also stuck around for lunch there.  This was a GREAT day!

Custer State Park

 

One morning Judy got up early and went with Paul & Dottie for a ride through Custer State Park's wildlife loop and here's some of the critters she saw.  Me?  I slept in.  We drove through the park several times and saw these animals several times.

Mt Rushmore & 9/11 anniversary

On Tuesday evening, the 11th anniversary of 9/11 we all went to Mt Rushmore for an evening presentation and light show.  I was impressed when the park ranger invited everyone who has or is serving in the military to come down on the stage.  She then had each of them introduce themselves.