Day Twelve: Goodbye Montana; Hello South Dakota

We didn’t wake up as early as usual to get on the road, but after a good breakfast at the hotel, we got started. Our plan was to drive 4.5 hours to South Dakota. We passed by the monument at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, so we had a little history lesson on the car while driving through. We drove through the Northern Cheyenne Tribe territory. Later we passed through Custer National Forest which seemed to have more burnt trees from fires than growing trees. We crossed over the top of Wyoming and then into South Dakota!  Our plan was to stop at Spearfish Canyon and see some waterfalls.  When we got into town, we decided to go eat first!  We stopped at Barccoas for burritos (it was similar to Bubbaritos). We had been told to get ice cream from Leone’s Creamery while there but found out they are closed on Tuesdays.  However, we happened to be shopping at a store that had a freezer full of individual pints so we did get to try some!

Afterwards we started to go see the waterfalls in Spearfish Canyon but realized they were pretty dry and figured there wouldn’t be much water falling to see.  So we went ahead and took the short drive to Deadwood.   This is a western town where “Wild Bill” Hickok was shot and killed.  Calamity Jane also walked those streets.  We enjoyed getting out and walking up and down the Main Street and getting some souvenirs.  

Next we took a drive through Sturgis where everything is centered around motorcycles. We didn’t spend much time here.  We were ready to get to Rapid City and find our house we were staying in.  I’ve not talked much about our places we’ve stayed in other than hotels.  For the main parks and this area, we planned to stay over two nights so we could see more things.  We used VRBO and Air B&B to find those places.  You don’t know for sure what you will get each time.  But for us, each place served a purpose for us and we were mostly happy. We were glad to get to do our laundry in these places and spread out a little. This last place was a house in a neighborhood in Rapid City.  It was probably the nicest place we stayed in.  We were very comfortable there. We settled in and then went to a neat little place for dinner called Greasy’s Burgers. . After dinner, we went to the downtown area and walked around until dark.  They had statues of all the presidents. We had fun trying to guess the President as we walked up to them.  And taking pictures with them.