Speaking of Deadwood. Straight up truth. My wife and I were traveling through and spent the night in Deadwood. Caught the Aces and 8's in the museum and then caught the spot where Wild Bill was shot. But ultimately we ended up in a sports bar/grill that had a BUNCH of Kevin Costner memorabilia. We spent the night just relaxing and had a good time. Anyway.....we are looking at this Fields of Dreams exhibit display (my wife is wearing an Iowa State shirt) and a voice behinds us says "I love Iowa it really is heaven. This was one of my favorite films I've ever done. I saw your shirt, are you from there?" My wife turns around and does the stereotypical '"Gulp" and grabs my arm. Yep Kevin Costner himself! Turns out the guy owned the place and and was doing a meet and greet we knew nothing about. We explained that we lived about 30 minutes from Dyersville and knew the place well. So forgive me, but Deadwood has always been a pretty cool place to me and my wife because of that single night and the story that came about.
Vacation in the Black Hills
- Thread starter CYdTracked
- Start date
Yea, we stayed there last summer in one of the cabins. Really nice amenities. Would definitely stay again.
If you are going to more than 2 National Park units (Wind Cave, Badlands, Rushmore) you might want to get an annual "America the Beautiful" pass. Eighty bucks for every National Park unit (includes monuments, parks, etc.) for a calendar year. There are even better deals for military/veterans, gold star families, the disabled, and seniors. Hell there is even a free pass for you if you have a 4th grader in your party.
If you are 62 or older you can get a lifetime pass for that same $80.
The passes cover more than just National Park units too. See the list and more info here:
Entrance Passes (U.S. National Park Service)
The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass Series is your ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites, covering entrance, standard amenity, and day-use fees.
I mentioned their Kamping Kabins earlier in this thread. Rustic place to crash but don't have to sleep on the ground or in a tent. We loved it. It wasn't like we were planning on being there more than just 8 hours a night anyway.
Yep! We are a huge National Park family. Buy it at the gate of the 1st day you enter and its good for 12 months. If you play the calendar correct (or actually get blind lucky) you can get (2) years worth of vacations out of it!!!If you are going to more than 2 National Park units (Wind Cave, Badlands, Rushmore) you might want to get an annual "America the Beautiful" pass. Eighty bucks for every National Park unit (includes monuments, parks, etc.) for a calendar year. There are even better deals for military/veterans, gold star families, the disabled, and seniors. Hell there is even a free pass for you if you have a 4th grader in your party.
If you are 62 or older you can get a lifetime pass for that same $80.
The passes cover more than just National Park units too. See the list and more info here:
Entrance Passes (U.S. National Park Service)
The National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass Series is your ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites, covering entrance, standard amenity, and day-use fees.www.nps.gov
We have now gone through Keystone a couple of times...there isn't much there but a pizza place, maybe another dinner, and a food truck that did smell pretty good. Haha.
There's 4-5 restaurants right on the boardwalk area. We were going to eat at Ruby House, but they were super busy. We ended up getting something from a walk up window on the second level of the boardwalk that was solid.
Do the hike around Devil's Tower. On your way around, it feels like you enter/exit about four different ecosystems. That site was one of my favorites, and we've done about everything mentioned in this thread. Breathtaking natural structure.
Yeah, if you have never been the scale of it all is as psychlone99 said, breathtaking.
When leaving Deadwood, I would suggest taking Highway 14A to Lead and then onto Spearfish, which takes you through Spearfish Canyon. It’s a very scenic drive.
Okay, over the last two nights we had some local places for dinner. Last night was Mackenzie River Pizza & Pub. This was good. Picked up food to go but the restaurant was nice. I had their Rise and Shine burger (burger with bacon, egg, and fried jalapenos). Very good. I'd recommend.
Tonight we had JRs BBQ. We had the brisket, pulled pork and chopped chicken. The brisket and pork were great! The chicken was pretty good. The baked beans were good. The green chili Mac and cheese was pretty good, has some heat. I can't speak to the coleslaw as it was vinegar based and that's not my preferred type. It was very good BBQ and I'd highly recommend if you like BBQ.
Tonight we had JRs BBQ. We had the brisket, pulled pork and chopped chicken. The brisket and pork were great! The chicken was pretty good. The baked beans were good. The green chili Mac and cheese was pretty good, has some heat. I can't speak to the coleslaw as it was vinegar based and that's not my preferred type. It was very good BBQ and I'd highly recommend if you like BBQ.
You all keep suggesting stuff and makes me wish I had more time to stay another night or 2 to see it all! Maybe the kids will love what we are able to see this time that we'll have to make another trip out of it in another year or 2.
Personally I'd like to rent a cabin or AirBnB type of place in that area but my wife isn't really into the camping type stuff so would take a lot of convincing to get her out of her comfort zone. The KOA in Keystone looks like fun and my brother in law even recommended it as they have stayed there before. My biggest hurdle is my wife had a traumatic experience when we were dating as her apartment building caught on fire in the middle of the night so just the smell of smoke of a campfire brings back bad memories for her. She was woke up in the middle of the night by the sliding glass door to her 3rd story deck shattering. She opened her bedroom door to find their living room on fire and the fire alarm was not even going off. She went into the hallway and broke the fire extinguisher case which finally set off the alarms in the building then went back to check to see if her roommate was home. The apartment was a complete loss. I remember going with her to see what she could salvage and all we took were some personal items in a rubber tote that I remember my garage stunk like the burnt apartment when it sat in there so the camping/non-hotel options when we vacation is something I have to concede on since she won't do it. I think my kids want to try camping so first step would be get a tent to setup in the backyard and ease them into it then maybe find a local campground to do tent camping at next.
Personally I'd like to rent a cabin or AirBnB type of place in that area but my wife isn't really into the camping type stuff so would take a lot of convincing to get her out of her comfort zone. The KOA in Keystone looks like fun and my brother in law even recommended it as they have stayed there before. My biggest hurdle is my wife had a traumatic experience when we were dating as her apartment building caught on fire in the middle of the night so just the smell of smoke of a campfire brings back bad memories for her. She was woke up in the middle of the night by the sliding glass door to her 3rd story deck shattering. She opened her bedroom door to find their living room on fire and the fire alarm was not even going off. She went into the hallway and broke the fire extinguisher case which finally set off the alarms in the building then went back to check to see if her roommate was home. The apartment was a complete loss. I remember going with her to see what she could salvage and all we took were some personal items in a rubber tote that I remember my garage stunk like the burnt apartment when it sat in there so the camping/non-hotel options when we vacation is something I have to concede on since she won't do it. I think my kids want to try camping so first step would be get a tent to setup in the backyard and ease them into it then maybe find a local campground to do tent camping at next.
I haven't read all the comments so sorry if repeated but the Needles Highway is a must, also Sylvan Lake is a good stop. There is a lodge there (spendy but very cool). We also enjoyed the town of Custer, although it was 30 years ago that we were there so it probably has changed a lot. It's a great trip, you'll have fun
wow - can't believe I forgot Sylvan Lake, yeah that was a family favorite climbing the rock formations
it's nerdy, but I definitely wondered about the calculation of where to put the paved trail ... like there were some rocks that had sheered off and landed OUTSIDE of the trail, but apparently the maths estimated that only happened every couple hundred years so f it lol
Enjoying nature comes with risks!
When visiting these types of sites, I try to do limited research, including looking at photos. I truly love the first sight of some of our country's natural beauty. Rolling up to Devil's Tower for the first time with no real defined expectations was mind blowing.
