The day we decided to visit Deadwood, South Dakota, turned out to be during the 2007 “Kool Deadwood Nights” festival.
We had no idea that there was anything special going on until we got there. When we had trouble finding a place to park, we almost decided to head on down the road to see other places and sights.
Deadwood’s Main Street was filled with the chairs of people who were planning to attend the night’s entertainment. We have no idea who was performing that night and we were not prepared to stay that late.
Kool Deadwood Nights: Car lovers come together for four days full of classic cars, classic music and classic fun. It’s a 50’s and 60’s sock hop—Deadwood style. Enjoy parades, show and shines and FREE concerts on Main Street featuring the biggest names in rock ‘n roll history.1
Deadwood, named for dead trees found there when it was established, was illegally settled in the 1870s in territory granted to native tribes in the 1868 Treaty of Laramie. An expedition led by George Armstrong Custer in 1874 announce the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. The news, of course, triggered a gold rush, and gave rise to the lawless town of Deadwood.
The town’s early history forms the basis for the storyline of the HBO TV series named Deadwood.
In the late 80s, on our way home from a western vacation, we stopped for one night in Badlands National Park. The stop included a nighttime ranger guided walk.
Our 2007 trip was a daytime visit as we were camping in the Black Hills. It started out as a chilly blustery day, but, fortunately the weather improved as the day went on.
The badlands is a fascinating landscape of “sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States1.”
One of our first stops on our 2007 trip, after visiting family in Nebraska, was the Black Hills of South Dakota. While there, we visited Mount Rushmore National Monument.
We had stopped at Mount Rushmore once in the late 80s. We were on our way home from vacationing in Wyoming and Idaho and our visit to Rushmore was a hurried afterthought.
This trip, we took our time and got the full benefit of the visit. Mount Rushmore is worth seeing.
Whenever we go on a trip, I take a lot of pictures. Before I share any of the pictures, I post-process them – sort of like putting them through a digital darkroom – to remove flaws and adjust the saturation and contrast. It takes time, but I have been able to streamline my process somewhat.
I have just completed processing the last groups of images from the first big western trip we took after I retired in 2007. I’ve started creating videos using photos from that trip, with background music from YouTube audio swap. The first two of the series have been already posted:
Begging Burros is a name used to refer to feral burros (asses) in Custer State Park, South Dakota. The burros are descendants of a herd were used to carry visitors to the top of Harney Peak. When the rides were discontinued years ago, the burros were released into the park. Elk, mule deer, white tailed deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, and mountain lions also inhabit the park.
ass: (noun) 1. A hoofed mammal of the horse family with a braying call, typically smaller than a horse and with longer ears
burro: (noun) 1. The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. In the western United States, a small donkey is sometimes called a ”burro” (from the Spanish word for the animal).
Just over a quarter of Nebraska is mixed grass prairie on grass-stabilized sand dunes, referred to locally as the sandhills. It is the largest area of sand dunes in the western hemisphere.
In 2007, we visited a relative’s ranch in the sandhills, a place of fond memories for me. The accompanying video was produced from pictures from that visit.
The Nebraska Sandhills – Lincoln City Library: “The Nebraska Sandhills are the largest area of sand dunes in the western hemisphere. Over 50,000 square kilometers, or close to 20,000 square miles in extent (not counting some outliers), the Sandhills are fragile grasslands that are wild, sparsely settled, desolate, and beautiful in unexpected ways.”
The town’s early history forms the basis for the storyline of the HBO TV series named Deadwood.
