South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Home

Hello Everyone:

We hope you are having a great summer as much as we have.

We went to the Kool Summer Nites at Deadwood, South Dakota.  The city of Deadwood closes its main street to traffic and opens it up to a live stage show. We were talking to a couple who go every year and apparently you get up early in the morning and go to Deadwood to the main street and set up your camping chair for the day, in order to get a good place to watch the entertainment later in the evening.  Doug and I decided we did not need to do this :)  There must have been 400 chairs set up!

All along the side streets are lots with older cars that have been restored.  Everywhere you looked there were old classic cars!

This is the one that I would pick - looks like the car in American Graffiti 

We had a great time watching people, from hard core biker dudes to old tired farmers.  We also bought a glass for $5.00 full of beer and then all down the street you can get refills for $3.00.  Makes for a lot of drinking I would say.  Most of the stores on main street are done in a western theme and have casino's in them.  I told Doug I was going to gamble $200.00 in the course of the day and evening.  When we took the shuttle back to the campsite, and I added up my winnings, it came to $716.00.  So I won $516.00 Yeah for me!  Doug also won $100.00 - so a good time was had by all.

Deadwood is mostly know for the killing of Wild Bill Hickok.  He was sitting at a poker table with his back to the door, holding Aces and Eights, when Jack McCall shot him in the back.  During the summer, they re-enact this scene and have Jack McCall go to trail.  It is a free show and it is excellent, they use people out of the audience and it is very funny.  We saw it 10 years ago when we were there.   If you get a chance this is a cool place to visit, they seem to treat tourist right!

We left Deadwood, South Dakota and drove a long day to Cody Wyoming.  We went thru some beautiful landscape, and it looked like we should see buffalo roaming everywhere.

Another great Waterfall we came across.

We had to cross the "Big Horn Mountains" which, the only way to go, is straight up.  We remembered this pass from 10 years ago, and this time it was much worse.  It was rainy, and the clouds were hanging low on the mountains, but you could still see far ahead.  By the time we started to climb this narrow, no shoulder road, going up and up, the clouds came down and we could not see 25 feet ahead of us.  If you looked over the side it was straight down, so no room for error.  You could not pull over, no where to, so you just prayed and went slow, but not too slow.  It was very scary and not a very safe place to be.  Doug did a great job driving, and I just held on and kept my eyes closed mostly, praying.  We made it thru the pass, and vow never to go thru the Big Horn Mountains again!

The red you see in these rocks is iron

We decided to spend 3 nights in Cody and take everything in. 

Here is a little history of Cody Wyoming.

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody helped found the town of Cody in 1895, and established his TE Ranch south of town.  He was probably the best known American in the world during his lifetime.  Having been involved in many events that shaped the American West, he formed a arena show of the Western experience. - Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1883.  This show toured the United States and Europe for 10 years.   In 1902 he built the Irma Hotel which he called "just the swellest hotel that ever was".  This hotel was named after his youngest daughter Irma Louise Cody.  He was a soldier, scout, bison hunter and great showman. Everywhere you look it has something to do with Wild Bill.

One of the first things we did was take a trolly ride around and thru Cody.  It told you about the history and where the city is today and showed some old buildings, pictures and of course stories.

We then walked around the town and did some shopping.

This is the original "Cherry Wood" bar in the Irma Hotel

Main street

Me and my friend

Statues were everywhere you looked

I think this is one of the first RV's

A horses's ASS!

We then went to the "Ole Trail Town"

In 1967, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody began to gather the historic buildings and relics to be displayed at a site on the west side of Cody.  Many of the buildings were taken completely apart, moved to the new site and reassembled.  The Ole Trail Town collection now consists of 26 buildings, which date from 1879 to 1901, one hundred horse drawn vehicles, an extensive collection of memorabilia from the Wyoming frontier and authentic Indian artifacts.  It also has the graves of

Jeremiah "Liver Eating" Johnson (Robert Redford made a move of this mans life), and 5 other graves.

It was interesting to see the Rivers Saloon (1888), where the "Hole in the Wall" gang used, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  There were even bullet holes in the door!  It cost only $8.00 and took about 30 minutes to see everything, well done!

Front row is Butch Cassidy on the left (even looks like Paul Neuman) and last in front is the Sundance Kid.

One of the many wagons that they had there

Some of the old buildings they recreated

Old school

 Homestead where Butch Cassidy stayed

Buffalo Skull

Old carriages, most are in really bad shape, and they have no plans in restoring them.

This is a photo of Jeremiah Johnson

This is his grave.  He was not buried here at first, but they moved his body and had a reburial,

in 1978 and Robert Redford came,  was one of the pall bearers.  

Antler bone yard

Seems every room you went into they had some sort of stuff wildlife.

Doug and I spotted this BBQ Place and just had to eat there.  The food was amazing and we both ate way to much.

Ribs and Chicken, with coleslaw, fries and beans

Beef Brisket with fries and beans

It has been cool and raining off and on for the last few days.  Cody holds a rodeo every night during the summer and we were hoping to go to it.  They have canceled the rodeo because it has been to wet and we never did get to go.  This car drove around advertising the rodeo - was great!

Check out the hood with the "Long Horns" on it.

We did take in the free gun fight that they put on every night in front of the Irma Saloon.  It was really poorly done, and we both felt they could have put on a better show, much like the one we saw in Deadwood, South Dakota, but it was free!

The costumes were great, but the acting and the story was bad.

The whole gang

Doug and the Doctor

A couple of funny signs we came across LOL

We will be moving on to Montana and then home.  It will be nice to be home again, but not for a few more days, as we will be stopping off in Calgary to visit everyone and see Lori & Kevin's new house, and of course see Ben!

Take care everyone and play safe

Judy and Doug

Mid West USA

Hello Everyone:

I can't believe that we have been gone 3 months!  We counted the campsites we have stayed in and we have camped in 53 different places, and put on over 18,000 kms.  It has been everything we have hoped it would be. plus much more.  But as we get closer to home we are getting excited to get home.

We camped at a interstate park, which was right on the boarder of Wisconsin and Minn. where they have these glacier rock formations from the Ice Age.  So off we went to check them out.

They were pretty cool, and interesting.

We were also told to make sure we went to "Mount Tom"

as they were pretty proud of this.  So of course we went, and really???? it should be called

"Mount Hill".....nothing to see really, but we do what the locals tell us to do LOL  It is the highest peak for 50 miles we have been told.  So you can tell how flat the area was, they grow mostly corn and soy.

We climbed high up to the tower to get the full effect of Mount Tom

This is the view from atop of the tower - bush and more bush!

Doug enjoying the view

I am sure most of you have heard of "Little House of the Prairie".  Well, we found out that Charles Ingalls brought his wife and family to build his homestead in South Dakota.  We went and saw it, even though it was + 30 C that day, but it was worth it. They did a great job in preserving the history

This homestead was located in De Smet South Dakota in case anyone wants to visit.  They had people dressed up and playing their parts, and told us the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  

This is the picture of the real "happy" family of the Ingalls.  They just do not smile in those days, and always dressed in black!

This is the homestead.  What brought Charles Ingalls to bring his family to South Dakota in 1880, was a promise of free land from the government.  

If you farmed a 1/4 section of land for 5 years, build a homestead,  paid $16.00 to the country, then the land was yours.  This is what he did to get his free land.

This is the hay roof barn that Charles build.

This house is called Ma's little house, as this is what Ma called it.  This was the first homestead he built 

An old organ that was in the house, it does not work anymore as the mice have eaten away on the bellows.  Pity!

We went on this covered wagon ride to the one room school, where Laura went to school and where she taught.

Here at the school house they had a character dressed up to explain all the ins and outs of going to school in those days.  They did a great job, and we both found it very interesting.

Inside the school

This is the church that the Ingalls family went to.

This little guy was just born in June and has one blue eye and one brown eye.  Friendly little one!

Like I said earlier, we have camped in a lot of different sites, but besides the site where we put our chairs out with drinks on them (French Lake), this has to be one of the prettiest places we camped at.  It was just about empty, and we backed right on to the lake, where there were people fishing.  Quite, clean and just about perfect.  It was a State Park in South Dakota.

That is Lake Thompson right behind the trailer.

And we had a beautiful sunset also!

Worlds Largest Pheasant, in some small town in South Dakota "Who Knew?"

We then continued west to the badlands of South Dakota, where they have a scenic drive that you go on with a lot of pull offs to view the badlands.  The day we went, the temp reached +37 C, thank goodness for Air Conditioning!!!

They are similar to the badlands of Alberta.  A lot of Hoodoos and you can see different colours thru out each hoodoo.  They just sort of appeared, and when you left, much like Alberta, they are gone!

The whole scenic loop takes about 20 minutes, but they charge you $15.00 to go into the National Park, a bit pricey we thought.

Today we are off to "Kool Deadwood Nites" at Deadwood, South Dakota.  This is a Classic car show with cars from the 50's and 60's along with the music from that time.  Should be a lot of fun, we have been here before with Sandy and Brian - 10 years ago.  It is also the place where Wild Bill Hickok  was shot and killed playing poker.

Play safe everyone and until next week, have fun.

Doug and Judy