These were visible from the road. They were not afraid of the cars as we passed by.








A few more of our ride along the wildlife loop road. We saw plenty antelope and even some green horns. There were two groups of riders and both groups were about the same size. No, we never got to ride the horse. Another day for that.







Here is an antelope in the grass. We saw lots of them laying down and a couple of groups eating.

Here is some down town scenes taken from the trolley that took us around town. Looking at the buildings from our point of view, can you spot the casinos? They were everwhere. In the hotel, restaurant, bar, etc. Everwhere! Very little of the original buildings remain.

Most of what we saw appears to be renewed store front with older brick for the actual store. The buildings were very old.


Enjoy the pictures as there are more to upload.

Another hotel of a different kind. here is one of the three modes of earning a living. The real truth in those days for the women to support themselves was a husband, teaching school or a ladie of the night. Sure there were other things a girl could do, if you could name a few.





There were a couple of buildings so decorated on the second floor. Even Shirley was taken back by the pitures. She was in disbelief. The garments were very revealing. Oh well, they were manakins after all.

I'll get more of the pictures up loaded for you to see.

This is our rv park. We are in Sturgis, SD and we will stay for two days. This is where they motor cycle ralley is held each year. This little town will host upward of 300,000 for a week. While we were camped in Sturgis, we will visit Deadwood and Lead.
We went to eat in Sturgis and found mainly fast food. We did go into a "family resturaunt" and ended up having breakfast. What they had on the menu was not appetizing or too expensive.



Here is a couple pics to start of Deadwood. This is the town that Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back and where Calamity Jane lived. The town nearly became a ghost town back in the 80.s. It was the introduction of gambling that brought the town the tourist traffic. In Deadwood is atleast 80 casinos.

This is the "Welcome to Deadwood" city sign.



This is the Franklin Hotel. It has been around since before the turn of the century. And it even has air condition!
Deadwood is set in a valley and has from one to three main roads. You will enter on one road and exit on the same one road. Some of the pics are abit risque to say the least. Since they are visible from the street, I will show them here. Back in those days, there were honest, hard working bar owners, gunslingers and the ever present "madam" and her girls!

The rain stopped about mid morning. The temp never got above 70. Its at 63 now and thats cool. Both of us have been in long sleeve shirts and jeans all day. Were not going to the fire ring tonight and learn about the early cowboys because its cold.

We did drive 15 miles east to get gas and see if its cheaper there or here in medora. We paid $2.34.9 which is the same price here. We will fill the rv here since we can get in the station. We have 3/8 of a 75 gallon tank. A few pennies makes a big difference in the price we pay.

Go take another look at the campsite pics. Shirley wants to back out of here. She thinks it will be easier. If that doesnt work we can still go forward and get out. The difference is the amout of scratches we get by going forward. Going backward gets us vertually no scratches.

We will be taking US 85 south to the black hills. There is the Strugis annual bike rally 8/8-14 that we will get to miss. They will have literally thousands of bikers in town for a week. We want to be gone a week ahead of the rally. We are not sure if we will go south to Nebraska or east to Iowa. We will do more research on the free camping issue before we make up our minds. The dish sure does help finding camping areas and pricing. We need to begin heading to Illionis for the fall escapade in September, see escapees.com for more info. The escapade is goingto be in DuQuoin, IL. The milage from here to there is 1259 miles per mapquest. We will be going a bit differently so the milage will be someing else. and its 1454 miles to fort worth.

We have spent $408.00 for rv gas and $30.50 for camping for the month. Our budget is $520.00 for both. We have free camping planned for the next two nights and we will go about 160 miles the next two days. After that its pay for camping and sightseeing in the black hills thru the 31. Then we will leave the area for the bikers to arrive and head either south or east. We are doing really good on the budget and actual so far. But we are going to a tourist area and we expect to pay. This will put us over budget for sure.

Our next scheduled mail delivery is about two weeks. We got our mail last thursday. Ya'll be good and dont let the bed bugs bite.

Good night!

Today is a rain day. It started about 3 am and its still showering. It rained really hard till daylight but its down to light showers. We have a 50% chance of rain, low over night was 54, which it is now, and a forecast high of 72. I have installed the weatherbug into the laptop and this gives ue current temp, radar and forecast.

I have also bookmarked the weatherunderground for the location of doppler sites so we can see what is going on around us. Paste this url, http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp, into your browser and watch the weather at your location.

Of course, if we have bad weather, we dont have any plce to go. We had two rounds of hail in New Salem and it did put dents in the car. The rv came thru with no apparent damage tho I suspect the broken chassis battery solar panel resulted from the hail. I do know that it was not broken prior and we didnt hit any low limbs. Later this year I will have the insurance look at all this and see is we have a claim. And if I can find an rv dealer, I think I will get roof sealer and do the roof before it leaks.

Yes it would be a good idea to get pictures of all this for future reference. After the rain stops. We will stay here one more day and then we will head south to the black hills.

You have already seen the buffalo, the rabbit and the prairie dog, we hear there is elk and deer. Well, there is also wild horses. These family of four grace the campsite and graze on the grass. Remember, these are wild animals and a danger to the unsuspecting few that try to get to close. The little colt is on the dirt to try and get rid of the flies. he lay on the ground for several minitues. When he finally got up, I got a shot of him looking back and before the shutter on the camera was finished for the next picture, he was up.


These horses are well fed as you can see. The camp host suspects that the campers are leaving food for them. Because they are too friendly, aka dangerous, they will probably be rounded up at the next roundup and shipped off. There are pretty to look at but they are wild, and can be very dangerous.

The signs in the park tell the visitors to not fed the animals. We were at the Painted Canyon visitors center yesterday and they have a picture of a buffalo looking in the window looking at us look at him. Since these animals can weigh in around 2000 lbs, it was and can be a concern to the park workers as to the well being of the visitors.

This center has lots of areas outside that are open to the public and also to the animals. A careless act or movement by a visitor could result in someone getting injured at the very least and probably result in the death of the animal.

Back in the late 1900's, a frenchman, Marque de Mores, came to Medora with the vision of making the town a major meat packing shipping point. With the financial backing of hi father-in-law, he built a meat packing plant. The plant lasted several years but was not able to stay open year round due to the lack of prime beef. This led to its closing.
The plant was operated by other owners untill it was destroyed in a fire about 1906. As you can see, all that remains is the smoke stack, a boiler and brick building corners. Walking around the plant site, this was a fairly large group of buildings. I would imagine that this work was labor intensive. I say this as there was not the machinery needed to do the work.

As Shirley said "I came 500 miles to see some wildlife and I better see some or its a wasted trip. This is all we have seen in the 2 days we have been here. A buffalo and a rabbit. Just one!

What not to do at any park as it is dangerous.