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Howie's right about the parking lot at Mt. Rushmore. It's privately owned and cost $8 for a car when we were there a couple of years ago. There's hardly any free parking nearby and it's a long walk to the monument from any free parking. We saw a few free spaces downhill from the monument entrance. There's no admission fee to the park, but they get you at the parking lot. A Golden Age pass is worthless at Mt. Rushmore. The carving in the mountain is an amazing feat, but to me it was worth very little time compared to the natural beauty of the forest and the mountains.
There are some nice drives in the national forest off the main highways, but they are narrow, curvy and probably no fun with a trailer. In the midst of the forest is the Crazy Horse memorial—they've been working on that for decades. They've finished his head and I think they're working on the horse. I don't think it'll be finished in my lifetime. When done, it'll dwarf Mt. Rushmore in size.
Deadwood is marginally interesting, but very commercialized. It does not look like the Deadwood from the HBO series. We have visited only because Barb's best friend from school days lives there. Sturgis is nothing at all when the bikers aren't there. A few miles from Sturgis is a small VA hospital at an old army base with a small museum. My wife worked there in the early '70's in the lab—in fact, she was the lab, I think. Up hill and west of Deadwood is Lead (pronounced "Leed") where the Homestake mine was—a massive gold mining operation for a century, now closed. There may be tours. You can see just off the highway the massive open pit left by the mine. Spearfish is just north of the Black Hills and is a pleasant little town. There's a very scenic drive south from Spearfish to just west of Lead. The Black Hills are worth visiting as a mountainous oasis in the midst of flatlands. After driving for many hours across the prairie of the Dakotas or Wyoming or Montana, the Black Hills seem out of place as if they wandered east from the Rockies.
Gene
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