Our Little Tent on the Prairie

We spent the night in Bear Butte State Park in Sturgis, South Dakota. The butte isn't really a butte, but a mountain of spiritual significance to the local Native Americans. It was peaceful and quiet, no buffalo meanderings through our campsite!  We camped by the lake and heard the birds singing in the morning.

We then headed to the historic town of Deadwood.  It is an old Western town complete with Western store front buildings, all made out of brick, and with a brick main street.  We passed by Saloon number 10 where Wild Bill Hickock was shot, the Midnight Star Casino owned by Kevin Costner, and the place where the man who shot Wild Bill was captured. 

We stopped in Sundance and took our picture with the Sundance Kid in jail! 

Then we headed back through the corner of Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. We were going to camp in the campground there where they filmed some of the movie "Close Encounters", but it was too windy. We had to break camp because the 40 mph wind gusts were breaking our tent posts. I am learning how to camp with big wind gusts that we don't have in Calif! You have to use rope to tie down your tent! In the meantime, duct tape will hold our tent poles together until we get new ones.

We stopped at a park and made a delicious lunch of toasted french bread with a hot spring vegetable and goat cheese dip.  What a great lunch that was!

Our next stop was in Miles City, Montana, where we went to the Range Riders Museum. This was a museum all about cattle ranching and the life of the local cowboys. They also had the history of the town of Miles City. It was a large museum and we spent quite a bit of time there.

We headed east to North Dakota  and Fort Abraham Lincoln next. There we saw Custer's house.  It was a large two story house. He had a very nice home! The rest of the fort was remnants except for a couple of buildings that had also been restored, such as the commisary.  They have yet to rebuild the barracks and other quarters.  What was really interesting there was the Indian homes built right outside the fort.  They were round lodges built with logs and twigs and covered with mud.

There are ring-necked pheasant everywhere here.  They run across the roads and pop their heads up in the fields.
We had dinner at a nice little restaurant known for its local fare.  It was crowded when we got there, so we knew it had to be good.  We ordered the knoephla soup (creamy potato and chicken with dumplings), a fleischkuechle (spiced meat wrapped in a dough and cooked crisp), a side salad, and for dessert a caramel roll and a piece of rhubarb pie.   It was delicious!

Next we headed over to the Knife River Indian Village where Sakakawea (Sacagawea) was originally from.