Safe and Sound

Old Main Street, Deadwood (photo by Tony)

Katie and I made back from the Black Hills a couple of days ago. All in all, I think we stayed a day too long.

The last couple of days of our vacation was a little bit of a struggle, trying to figure out what to do. We decided to pass up on Sylvan Lake, which is located in Custer State Park. We would have paid $20 to buy the 2005 South Dakota State Park pass -- and we weren't prepared to part with $20 that could have been used elsewhere.

The Fourth of July was a joke. Katie and I were planning on hitting up Mt. Rushmore near Keystone to watch the fireworks. But get this -- the fireworks were on the 3rd, not the 4th. The place was already packed by noon, according to a local radio station. We still made the drive to Keystone, visiting the Cosmos "Mystery Park" and took a tour of Rushmore Cave near Heyward. People were actually moving faster by taking the 5-mile walk from Keystone to the national monument to watch the fireworks. Instead, we watched them on the TV back at the hotel -- at which the fireworks lasted only about 20 minutes. Thank God we were not there all day long.

But on the 4th, we did visit Mt. Rushmore. Later on that day, we hit Deadwood -- which is just basically bars and casinos now -- a lot different from what I remember about 15 years ago.

The weather was perfect, no rain, but we stayed a day too long.