DAY 4: Sunday 9 May 2010 - Keystone and Mount Rushmore, South Dakota to Deadwood and Lead, Wyoming
We started our day on an optional tour of the Black Hills (sing with me "Take me back to the Black Hills, the Black Hills of Dakota..." or maybe not). This is beautiful countryside and was, before the white man arrived, sacred Indian lands.
We passed a beautiful lake before reaching the Needles Eye rock formation where erosion has created a hole in the rock. We passed the Cathedral Spires Trail Head, but, fortunately for us, there was no time to take a hike. Phew!
We managed to find some wildlife, too, here - we found mule deer, long haired sheep and some buffalo (which we would later find out are actually bison!)
Once we were out of the Black Hills, we got our regular bus over to our 'proper' visit to Mount Rushmore (yesterday's visit was a sneak preview). The weather was much better today, with blue sky making the heads of the presidents really stand out.
The next stop today was a place I had never heard of. It's called Tatanka: Story of the Bison and can be found on land belonging to Kevin Costner's parents and came about as a consequence of the movie Dancing With Wolves. Now, I loved the movie and this place plays homage to the Indians featured in that movie, the Plains Indians. It also aims to demystify the myths that, well, Hollywood really, have made us believe about the Indian.
It was Mother's Day on the day we arrived so all the women of the group were handed a Tatanka enamel badge, which was a nice touch.
We started with a brief talk in their meeting room - two sets of chairs either side of a pretty huge buffalo - and apparently this was a not full grown female. Anyway, it seems there are only two types of 'real' buffalo (water and another one...I forget which!) and the big animal, featured in a whole bunch of westerns, are actually bison. Go figure. Our interpreter, Billy Leroy, explained about the way of life of the Plains Indians, their weapons, their superstitions.
Apparently the name Sioux is derogatory and is a translation that their enemies, who worked as scouts for the US Government, named them when asked who they were. To their own members they are the Lakota. Their lives follow the pattern of the bison, as they would track them across the plains.
As this is a Kevin Costner enterprise, there are some references to the the movie, including one of Kevin's uniforms and some other artifacts from the movie.
However, once we got outside, we saw the most amazing piece of sculpture, although this wasn't the intended resting place. The piece was originally designed for a casino that Costner was planning but when that didn't materialise, Kevin placed it here, on his parents land, and set up this exhibit.
The exhibit depicts a 'Buffalo Jump' where Lakota (Sioux) warriors would drive buffalo off a cliff enabling them to kill enough for them to be able to feed their village over the ensuing months. You can see a similar live-action (well, there are some animatronics) scene depicted in the movie Dances With Wolves, but as a sculptures this is pretty stunning - you can almost feel the movement.
That's me with our interpreter Billy standing in front of the exhibit.
This was another place I'd have liked to have stayed longer, but that's not the nature of a bus tour. You can't usually just have another ten minutes as there are schedules to keep and the interests of many passengers to consider.
To be fair, it's not a huge place, but if you are in the area, it's well worth the visit. Especially if you love Dances With Wolves. The people were friendly and the gift shop had items that weren't your run of the mill stuff.
Our next stop was at Deadwood, Wyoming "Oh, the Deadwood Stage is a comin' on over the hills....!!" (Sorry, but this is Calamity Jane country!)
Our first stop in Deadwood, Wyoming, was at the Homestake Gold Mine. Apparently they did everything possible to get ALL the gold out of these hills, starting with mining before using chemicals to extract any last remaining traces of gold, or other precious metals. All sounds a little toxic to me, but they stopped mining a while ago.
Basically, there's one heck of a big hole in the ground nowadays. There's a little gift shop and a few explanatory boards, but not so much. This is more your half an hour quick stop museum, but interesting enough.
We then stopped off at the hotel in Lead, Wyoming, just outside of Deadwood, to drop our bags before heading back into Deadwood for our Stage - well, bus - tour. I'm sure there's a market for a tour of Deadwood by stagecoach, but right now, there isn't one. (Shame!)
The tour showed us a little of the town and it's history, finally ending up in the town itself. It's a little basic, but not that expensive so overall it was okay.
We figured we could get dinner, while we were in town, before returning to the hotel via complimentary hotel limo.
We decided to take a look around before dinner, checking out the old saloon, and finding out where Wild Bill Hickock was shot. It was in this saloon (above right) should you be interested.
At the far end of town, we bumped into the man himself, well, a statue anyway.
For dinner, we initally took a look at Kevin Costner's place, but nothing grabbed us (other than the decor - from some of Costner's movies). We then headed to the Deadwood Social Club which Jack had recommended for dinner. It was pretty hard to find, there's a lift (elevator) entrance at the back of a bar so be careful you don't miss it. We even managed dessert here - well, we ordered one tiramisu between all of us - it was incredibly good.
We then had to arrange return transportation back to the hotel so went to the hotel we'd been told to call from only to be told the limo had already been ordered! Pretty impressive! We understood why when we went outside to wait - several of our group were here ahead of us.
Deciding to all squeeze in together, it was a bit of a crush, but we managed to get all of us into the limo so we could get back in one trip. It was a good evening (and so much better than walking up the steep hill back to the hotel).
