Day 12, Sunday, July 20, 2008 – 121 miles
Note: For those of you who are diabetic or are considering
becoming diabetic, please note that excessive ice cream consumption
may raise your blood sugar levels in the morning. (OK, it MIGHT have been the Mexican
food or possibly the cocktail…) Next
time I’ll wait until I’ve been up and moving a while before I check! No breakfast
for Warren, as punishment, we may have to do
some walking again…
Today we leave the Spearfish KOA and move to lodging in Hill
City which is just a small stretch down the road. It is closer to
Custer State Park, Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, Keystone, Needles Highway etc. Actually,
the most important thing was;
they have rooms available! (This area is saturated with tourists.) We will
certainly miss the staff at the KOA. When they found
that we had gone to the “Center of the Nation” they ask that I share the
pictures. Cathy is now the poster child for the
“monument” and you can see her picture as a screen saver at the KOA. Of course,
with everyone getting their brush with
fame, Kendra, the morning breakfast host was feeling jealous and left out.
Well, we try to help, so today we feature Kendra.
This is NOT posed, she is ALWAYS this happy! Cathy says she
makes a mean bowl of oatmeal (with your choice of raisins or
craisins) and Marcia, the Host, says she whips up the food for long lines of
bikers during bike week in Sturgis. Cathy didn’t
have a picture for today so here she is in front of Pactola Reservoir.
We had a great ride down to Keystone where we were going to
try and catch the 1880’s steam train. We didn’t find the depot
as we cruised through so we just continued on until we came to see the Talking
Heads…no, that’s not right, it was Mount
Rushmore.
They’ve expanded the
visitor center even more than when I was here last. It has a big parking garage
and more concrete
structures and things to see and do. When we finished there, we hopped back on
the road and headed for Hill City. Marcia
had suggested lunch at the Alpine Inn and of course we were still interested in
the train and finding our lodging. I asked
Cathy to keep her eyes peeled for all three. As luck would have it, we found
the Alpine Inn and right next to it was our hotel.
Two down, one to go. Rounding the next corner, we found the train. We got
tickets to ride the 1:15 departure and headed back
to check in to hotel.
Here’s our next pleasant surprise. The Harney Peak Motel
owners are bikers and cater very well to that crowd. It is an older
property but well maintained and clean. It looked like 5 of the 6 units had
bikes in front of them. (At least by dark it was that
way.) We dropped the trailer off the bike and left them both there as in Hill
City you can walk to most places. Unfortunately,
the Alpine Inn is closed Sundays so we walked up the street to Slate Creek
Grill for a quick lunch before walking to the train
station. (We told them our need for fast service and they complied.) Notice,
today we have exercise and a better diet!
We got to the station with plenty of time before our ride.
Today was a special day as they were double-heading the steam
engines, hooking #104 and #7 back-to-back
to pull the train. We got into the first car, the Keystone, which was built in
1912 if
I remember right. (I wasn’t there in 1912, the conductor told us.) Factoids:
The water tower holds 3000 gallons. The tender in
#7 holds 4000 gallons and will use 2000 gallons to make the trip to Keystone
from Hill City.
This was the view from our seat. We could see the front of
#104 quite well. What a ride! We could hear the steam noise and
smell the smoke riding so close like that. The grade on the way to Keystone
approaches 7% making it the steepest in North
America.
At Keystone, they took on water again and then bypassed the
train, hooking to the other end which made us now the last car.
We returned to Hill City, back the way we came. (That was the plan from the
start…) Cathy and I sat on the other side of the
car to see what we missed going the other way. We saw quite a few deer, cattle,
horses and people waving at us. (Just the
people waved, not the others. The deer ran away.) In the second picture, back
at Hil City, they blew out the boilers which
makes a lot of noise and steam. Do you think that man knows a train is sneaking
up on him?
We learned that Harney Peak is the tallest in this range. They
are on their third ranger tower. The first two were wooden
structures and they both burned down after being hit by lightening. (There’s
irony for you!) The current tower is made of
stone which burns at a much higher temperature. The tower forms a peak on the
peak and in the picture you get a peek.
(Had to do it. Must be the coffee…keep reading!)
You would think that we would just end our day here. Nope,
not me! (Cathy would have but I am persistent. Besides, I made
dinner reservations.) We went to the chuck wagon dinner at the Flying ‘T’. Now
you’re wondering why there are no pictures.
Well, when we got back from the train ride, I was able to take a few remaining
shots when the batteries died in the camera.
So, while we were eating, the batteries we having there electron dinner so they
would be fresh for tomorrow. Dinner was fun
with the tin plates and the hot food making your hands uncomfortable if you
hold your plate wrong. (You need to hold it by the
COOL applesauce, not the HOT beans and potato. They now serve the Cowboy Coffee
in insulated cups instead of tin ones as
they got tired of the screaming. (I remember the old days and getting back to
your table with that hot coffee was quite a
challenge!) If you had lemonade, that was in the tin cup but I figured it was
for wimps. After dinner there was a Country /
Bluegrass musical show with five musicians. The one lady played a washtub bass
that instead of the stick, washtub and string
(which they called a Skunk Fiddle or something like that) this one actually had
an oval washtub body with a regular bass neck
and sounding board. Very unique! Wish I was able to show you a picture. The
show was good with comedy, fiddle playing,
washboard playing and yodeling. Eventually, as the sun set on the Flying ‘T’,
it was time to head our iron pony GoldWing toward
the Harney Peak Motel and bed it down for the night. (Sorry, the theme had me
going and I’m very impressionable.) If you’re
curious about the show and the unique bass, their website is at: www.flyingt.com but you have to promise to
come back to this
page! They have a photo gallery you can see.
Picture two above: Here is our home for the next two nights! (^Up there on your screen.) See you in the morning!
PS – Thank you to the Alpine Inn for having a Wi-Fi connection I can use. Perhaps we’ll do lunch…