As I mentioned in the last posts' comments, we made it to Billings, MT last night before we had to stop. Today we trucked on from Billings, MT and are now currently residing in Mitchell, SD (home of the Corn Cob Palace!). Not quite to Sioux Falls like I'd hoped, but I realized that even though I drive from 7am to 7pm everyday I don't seem to be making as much progress as I did when I drove East-to-West. I think I've figured out why:1) Traveling West-to-East eats an hour on the clock each day (per time zone)
2) Sunset comes much sooner
3) There's so many things to stop and see in South Dakota!
Unfortunately I've had to put the kabosh on Mary's requests to see Mt. Rushmore and other strange and cool SD sights due to the rapid daylight loss each day. One place we did sneak through was Deadwood, South Dakota, the site of the famous gold boom town (as made into an awesome show by HBO).
First things first, we found "The Gem" saloon and whorehouse right where you'd expect it. Home of the infamous Albert Swearingen, the Gem is now a Steakhouse instead of whorehouse. :(
Also saw a number of "Bullock" restaurants, Wild Bill Hickok's saloon, and good ol' Charlie Udder even has his own live theater and postal service.
Didn't see any Calamity Jane stuff on our quick drive through, but I'm sure there's plenty more to see there. Definitely need to take a trip back, right after I re-watch all three seasons of that excellent show. There's also an 1880s town on HWY 90 just a couple hours east of Deadwood that looks pretty cool too. Lots of neat stuff in SD that's separated by hours upon hours of endless boring badlands vista.South Dakota also has a petrified zoo, Wall Drug, and a dinosaur museum that look really interesting, but like I said there's not enough daylight to stop if we mean to make it before the big snowstorms this weekend. One day we'll be back, South Dakota, one day!
