South Dakota - Day 1 - Belle Fourche and the Black Hills

Custer KOA, Custer

Sunday, 1 August 2021

today's route

I covered 230 miles today, which may not seem like many but much of it was in the Black Hills and only a suicidal idiot drives at highway speeds through there.  It took me more than 6 hours, but I started at 6:30 so that was okay.

On the road

You can see that I traveled in North Dakota only about 20 miles before hitting the state line.  And then:

"Welcome to South Dakota - Great Faces, Great Places."

South Dakota - my 31st state

The land didn't look appreciably different in South Dakota than it had in North Dakota, but I suddenly started seeing lots of deer.  Actually, I think they were antelope because they all had antlers (except the babies).  I looked it up and it turns out the visible (to humans) difference between the 2 are the antlers - deer shed their antlers while antelope's are permanent, and deer antlers branch but antelope antlers don't.  Not visible is the fact that deer are a biological family of their own while antelope are closely related to sheep and goats (who'd've thunk it?).

Anyway, in SD there's a really wide space between the highway and the fenced-in land, and that's where I saw lots of antelope - all along the road.  Once I saw 2 fawns by themselves, and at another time I saw 2 fawns with a doe.  Lots of deer.

My "check engine" light was showing steadily all day.  So weird.

Lots of cows, too.  In one field I saw a calf trying to nurse, only his mom was walking and got so near a fence the calf was cut off.  It stopped and stared at mom as if it couldn't believe it had happened and was trying to figure out what to do next.  I can sympathize - I find life full of moments like that.

And I saw some sheep and thousands of acres of tan-covered hills.

I passed a sign saying, "Center of the Nation 8 miles →."  Although I was heading for a monument to this in Belle Fourche, I'd read that the actual geographic center is on private land.  The owner not wanting to have legions of tourists trooping onto his land, the public monument was built in the nearest town.

Belle Fourche

The name of this town is pronounced locally as "bell foosh."  It means "beautiful forks" because this is where 3 rivers join (Belle Fourche River, Redwater River and Hay Creek).  I'm sure this town of 5,594 (SD puts population numbers on its highway signs) would like to encourage tourism, but as far as I can tell, mostly what it's got is this monument.

a close view for detail

Flags from each state fly at the
Center of the Nation monument.

explains what this is about

I remember traveling to the Geographic Center of the Contiguous United States near Lebanon, KS, which is what this sign is referring to.  Once the US got its far-flung states of Alaska and Hawaii, the US center moved up here, and that's what this monument commemorates.

There's a nice walking trail here and a park along the river - I think it's the Belle Fourche River.  And I found this other information nearby about the town.

Turns out Belle Fourche, too, was part of
the Great Western Cattle Trail.

And nearby I saw this artwork that seemed unusual to me.  And always timely.

Back on the road

From Belle Fourche, I wanted to stop at the Visitor Center on I-90 to pick up tourist information.  It turned out that the only way to get there was to go to Wyoming.  So I made a quick trip over that state boundary, turned around on the highway at the first chance, and came back into South Dakota.  Oddly, I had to cross a cattleguard in Wyoming, both when I was leaving the interstate and when I got back on again.  I guess a lot of cows were wandering onto the highway.

At the Visitor Center, a very helpful woman gave me far more pamphlets and booklets than I wanted.  I think I'll leave most of them at a campground somewhere for other people to pick up.  But she also explained South Dakota geography to me: the Missouri River almost bisects the state (and divides Central Time from Mountain Time).  She said folks here call the 2 areas East River and West River.  East River there're croplands and people; West River there're grasslands and ranches.  She said the population in the western half of SD is very sparse and, if it's people I want, I need to cross the river.  But of course, what makes the western part of SD famous are the Black Hills.

I spent much of the next 2 hours driving in the Black Hills National Forest.  It reminded me a little of southeast Alaska with tiny towns and huge mountains and constant forests of evergreens.  But, like West Virginia and unlike Pennsylvania, South Dakota does a good job of building mountain roads that drivers can drive on without white knuckles.

The Black Hills, which includes the national forest area, is an isolated mountain range - I'd thought it was part of the Rockies, but not according to Wikipedia.  They're called the Black Hills (a translation from the Lakota) because they look black from a distance from the evergreens covering them. The highest peak is Black Elk Peak at 7,244', which must be in Wyoming (the Black Hills extend into WY) because the AAA map says I drove by Harney Peak which, at 7,242' is the highest point in SD.  But with only a 2' difference, I didn't notice.  And actually, I was too busy driving that road to notice as much as I'd've liked.

The road was 2 lanes wide with occasional pull-out areas but no shoulders.  It was a constant series of ups and downs (including a 7% grade) and curves and s-curves and lots and lots of traffic.  Well, it was a beautiful Sunday so lots of people were out.  Plus there were LOTS of motorcycles.  The Sturgis rally doesn't start until next weekend, but I saw plenty of folks here early.  Actually, I thought it was helpful that there were so many bikers, because they usually traveled together in groups.  A group of bikes is much easier to see than a lone biker.  I got to the point where I was ready to stop those I saw riding alone and suggest they go find a friend.

The road runs through a long series of tourist towns with many many motels and hotels and B&Bs.  I'm guessing the folks around here have to make all their money in the 5 months or so of tourist season.

I drove through Deadwood, pop. 1,270 - "Where the Wild West Lives."  I didn't take the turn to the 1-mile road to the town of Lead (which I think is pronounced leed) - "Miles Beyond the Ordinary."

I passed several warning signs here and there that said "Bighorn Sheep Crossing Next 3 Miles - Be Prepared To Stop."  Which certainly gave me pause for thought.  Sadly, there weren't any sheep in sight.

Nestled in all these evergreens, I saw small meadows with wildflowers.  I passed occasional lakes, crossed occasional streams.

The "check engine" light started flashing, then reverted to being steady.  It doesn't seem to like hills.

Today was the first day my arm hasn't been hurting, although by the end of the day it was tired and starting to ache again.  Still, this is a definite improvement.

I came to Hill City, pop. 948 - "Heart of the Black Hills."  They advertise a CCC Museum which, they say, has information about the work done by the 23,000 young men from SD who were part of the CCC.  If I hadn't already been driving for 5 hours, I'd have wanted to stop and see where they'd been working.  All through town there were bikes parked by the dozens.  Given what I've already been seeing, my plan is to stay as far away from the Sturgis area as I can during the rally (which runs August 6-15).

A road sign said if I turned right, I'd come to the town of Mystic.  I didn't go there, but I've learned it's now a ghost town.  It was once a mining camp and railroad town where in 1875 the discovery of gold started the Black Hills Gold Rush.  Speaking of which, the whole time I was driving here I kept hearing Rocky Raccoon in my head ("Somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota there lived a young boy name of Rocky Raccoon . . . .")  I'll be glad to get out of this area if I'm going to keep hearing this song the whole time.

And then I came into Custer, pop. 2,068.  In 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer left Ft. Abraham Lincoln (near today's Bismarck, ND) with 1,000-man expeditionary force to explore the unknown-to-the-white-men Black Hills, find possible locations for forts and check for the presence of gold.  They camped where the town of Custer is today.

By the time we got here, it was midday and very hot, and I was trying to avoid other tourists and bikers because my RV is unwieldy in cramped places.  I stopped to get a pizza, and while I waited for them to make it I took the dogs out for a quick walk.  I'd wanted to take them across the street to a park with a nice walking trail I could see, but the road was part of US Hwy 16, so it had too much traffic for me to risk crossing it.  Instead we stayed on our side and it was very uncomfortable.  We found a massive number of ants (which Gracie was inclined to roll around in) and I couldn't find any place to walk that didn't have ants, so I gave up and we came back to the RV.

The campground was almost completely full because, despite it being a Sunday night, it was high tourist season for this area.  Even the cabins - I mean, Kabins - were all taken.  We were a long way from Sturgis but bikers need to have a place to stay and any place closer was probably as full as this campground was.