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To actually say that this was a Fourth of July trip is truthful, even if the fireworks show occurs on the night of the 3rd of July. The show was, as last year, incredible. It lasted about 35 - 40 minutes long, and included a full-afterburner fly-by of a B1 Bomber. Here's a quick rundown of the trip:
We left Billings at about 7:30 pm, with our first destination set for The Green Tree's Crazy Woman Campground in Gillette, Wy. We arrived at about 11pm, and quickly had the tent up. There was a light rain, which helped cool us off after a warm night's drive. The campground was clean although a bit more urban than I had hoped. It could have used a good cleaning, given that this isn't the first weekend of the season, by far. I would have thought that it would have had the 'once-over' by now. As we were leaving, the crew was cleaning the pool for what seemed to be the first filling of the year. Considering that we are now more than a month post-memorial day, I was a bit surprised.
The next morning was early. We were up at 7:00, and we were on the road by 8:45. The second day wasn't supposed to be a long drive, but we had many stops planed. The first stop was Lead, South Dakota via Deadwood. There, we hoped to find President’s Park, which is a park made up of giant heads of all the U.S. Presidents. The garden was quaint, and the grounds were well manicured, but the heads themselves were not in the best of shapes. For instance, Lincoln's hair (all of it) was missing, and some presidents were missing parts of noses and eyeglasses.
Next, we were back up to Deadwood to get to Nelson's Garage. It has a free collection of movie-collectible vehicles from movies over the years. Since it was Deadwood, the garage itself was converted into a casino. That brought cigarette smoke, and the mangy smell of years-old beer. We had fun looking at the items, but we quickly left the town. We had been disappointed by downtown Deadwood before, and had no intention of leaving any more money than needed.
Our next stop was just North of Deadwood at the Roo Ranch. This was fantastic. We we were able to play with some Kangaroos, and we were even able to spend time with one of the Joey's (after paying for the $10.00 picture fee to have our tag-a-long kid pose with it).
After this, we journeyed towards Mt. Rushmore, stopping at the Boondock's 50's Town diner. It was a fun little place, with good food, albeit all entirely too unhealthy. What the hell, it's a vacation, right. We enjoyed the food, and then we were off to the Touristy Cosmos, where we enjoyed perception altering feats.
At at about 5:00, we made it into Keystone, which is the little town at the bottom of the hill leading up to Mt. Rushmore. Last year, we arrived at Keystone at 8:00, and had to tear up the 2 mile hill to get a view of the mountain. This year, we hoped to get at least somewhat better parking, but alas, we were still too late. The entire town was covered in cars, and people milling about trying to get a good seat. The day was hot, but luckily, they hadn't closed the road up to Mt. Rushmore, yet. We journeyed up to the top, slowly, and dropped off the bulk of our items (chairs, tripods, cameras, food, liquid, etc). I trooped down the hill, found a marginally good parking space by driving straight between two cars and driving over the edge of the road. I made a three-point-turn in the grassy area on the other side, and poked my nose back out between the two cars. It wasn't legal, but there also weren't any cops caring about it. Plus, they'd have to give out about 200 other tickets for various other illegal parking jobs that were by far worse than mine.
By 6:30, I made it back up the hill, by foot. What a hike. I remember it vividly, and even now, my feet hurt. 2 miles isn't much, but uphill, in the heat and the sun, it's torture. I'm also not exactly the best of hikers!
We found a perfect spot, and setup camp, and waited. By about 9:15, the show started with a full after-burner fly-by of a B1 Bomber. The sound was deafening, and it echoed throughout the Black Hills area. The crowd roared, and the fireworks started. It was better than last year, and went on for a full 30 minutes. It ended with an ear-shattering 1 minute finale that left everybody in awe.
We trucked back down the hill, carrying all the supplies, and got to the truck by 10:30, our legs aching. We made it to the Flintstones Campground (yes, I said that right, the Flintstones Campground) in Custer, South Dakota by about 11:15 after sitting in much traffic.
The Flintstones Campground was quite unique. It is, as the name implies, based on the cartoon. Large Characters from the cartoon abound. The Buildings are designed as if from the cartoon. Even the showers bathrooms are designed in such a fashion. The grounds were clean and well-maintained. Everything was well in order. Even though it was late, many of our neighbors were still up and enjoying the cool misty air.
We woke up late (around 8:30), and had a slow start. This was helped when we tried to pay for our campsite, and was asked to wait while they counted the til. We waited for 15 minutes, and then pressed, stating that we were already late, which we were. This was the fourth, and we had a long drive to Sioux Falls South Dakota ahead of us. After some daylight photos, we were back on the road again.
I don't know if there were any brush fires in the area, but we were greeted with the hint of open fires almost the entire trek through South Dakota. That was with the exceptions of the beef ranches that littered the road. There is also the humorous city of Chamberlain which must hold the record for the slowest egress through the heart of the city. We were greeted with 20 mph speed limits, and cops that enforce it. We were lucky enough to not be driving a “truck”, which seems to have a speed limit of 15 miles an hour. Even coasting, with the truck in neutral, I had difficulty keeping the 20 mph promise.
We made it to Sioux Falls by about 8:00 and had just enough time to unload, and race across town to where we thought we'd find some fireworks. We were wrong, we found a laser show depicting the history of Sioux Falls instead. We weren't disappointed, as we already had our fireworks for the year. The display was in Falls Park, which as the name implies, is next to the Falls that run down the middle of the city. We were back to the hotel and asleep soon.
The last day, the 5th, was punctuated with a short visit to the South Dakota Battleship memorial park, which features a giant mock-up of the battleship South Dakota, followed by a visit to the Great Plains Zoo. This is a very nice zoo. Not too large, and not overrun with animals. The space is well used, and all the animals seem happy. The penguins room was unbearably hot. I also lost my hat, which we had to have retrieved by a zoo official before it was eaten by a Rhinoceros.
Next, we were off to the Sertoma Butterfly House, which as the name implies, is a house full of butterflies. 800 of them, to be precise. It was incredible, and incredibly hot, as they need to keep the temperature at 78 degrees, which also includes much humidity.
After drinking a lot of water, we were back on the road home. It was an 11 hour drive home to Billings, with a stop in the Ruby Tuesday in Mitchell, South Dakota.