Welcome to Deadwood (you know the rest)...

So.. Here I am and no wifi. The campground has it but it’s down. You won’t see this until tomorrow, which will see like today because you’re seeing it now... so confusing.

I got up early this morning and decided to have breakfast at Wall Drug. Wall Drug is in Wall South Dakota and is an interesting story. A man and his wife and child came to Wall in 1931 and opened a pharmacy. It was a small town and they could see all the cars going by and not stopping (many of them were probably the dust bowl people going west... another migration). He wondered what to do when his wife said, “Put up signs that say “FREE ICE WATER”. The next year he had to add 8 waitresses to handle the crowds for ice water and ice cream. Through the years he bought up the surrounding stores and added to the place. You can see the signs in Minnesota. There is a 520 seat restaurant INSIDE this building and you can buy just about anything. It’s huge and the town has grown and it’s a wonder. Another reason I love South Dakota.


Wall Drug


Inside Wall Drug... you can’t see it very well, but through that doorway there are many more doorways. It has a chapel and... well.. everything.

I stopped at the rest area outside of Wall

and then kept on going..



I saw some prairie dogs! Big Whoop..

I saved an entire family of turkeys by NOT running over them on the road... good eyes Marilyn.

A little old prairie home... Bigger Whoop... I;m getting there... be patient...

Then on to Deadwood.

The entire area changes and the flats of buffalo become hills and trees leading up to Deadwood...

It’s changed, of course, even since the last time I was there, just after Kevin Costner built his Casino. I was there once before gambling, and it was totally different. But, as the lady in the campground office said, without it Deadwood would probably have been gone...

A view before you enter.. by far the prettiest shot because it looks like a small western town.

Bullock’s hotel.. undergoing restoration?

The street...


The place where Jack McCall was caught. Further down the block is where the original #10 Saloon stood.

I drove out to Mt Moriah’s, but didn’t walk to the graves. I have pictures of them at home somewhere, but I wouldn’t have made it back down the hill as my knee was killing me from all the walking around Deadwood... I DO have a bucket of quarters though...


On to Lead (pronounced leed) and the Homestake mine. I have a video to put on here, and will. The picture tells a lot, and if you look at the schematic underneath, you can see that this is only a small part of the ‘diggings’, so to speak. Most of the gold was taken UNDERGROUND, and there is still some kind of study being done and more gold to get. Well worth it no matter how big it gets..

The mountain across from the KOA was build with slag from this mine, as were several others. I watched it being built, and now it’s covered with trees...