Blogs from Hill City, South Dakota, United States, North America

Yesterday evening we took a two mile walk on the George S. Mickelson Trail which lies directly behind our campground. It was named in honor of a former governor of South Dakota who really pushed for this trail before he died in a plane crash in 1993. It runs through the Black Hills and connects Deadwood with Edgemont. “The crushed stone pathway incorporates nearly 100 converted railroad bridges and 4 tunnels, and much of it traverses national forest; however, some segments pass through private lands and users are asked to respect landowner rights.” “In many places the trail is notched into the mountains—pressed up against granite walls to one side and dropping off steeply on the other. The granite gives way to slabs of slate stacked haphazardly like tall, thin texts on a bookshelf. Since the ... read more

We can explain...well, really, no we can’t... Yesterday afternoon we left you with the information that we were going to walk downtown and if anything happened, we would report on it today. Well...it really is a sad tale, and it is all Lora C’s fault. She wanted a picture of a bakery. Well, we walked to the end of town and started back up when we spied Turtle Town Candy Shop. We walked inside and I took a picture of their candy display. It is lovely as I am sure you will agree. Even though it looked delicious, we bravely left Turtle Town and continued our walk up Main Street towards our campground at the other end of town. As luck would have it, we passed Hill City Cafe and Bakery. We walked inside but didn‘t ... read more

Our intention today was to have a very slow one...and that was more or less what we did...kinda, sorta! We were up fairly early but that was because we were in bed last night fairly early. We took our time getting cleaned up and then having a late breakfast. Our morning was spectacular with cool temps (44 at 5:45 this morning) and a brilliant sun in crystal clear blue sky—just the way we like it. Of course, the humidity is very low here and the sun did warm us up quickly. Since we are so close to town—actually we are on the outside edge of Hill City—we decided to walk down the “rails to trails” path that goes right through our camp ground. We had intended to make a 2 mile or so walk into town ... read more

As we prepared to leave emotions ran high as I have hormonal daughters. My 14 year Isabella began to cry while packing. I asked what was wrong she replied, “I am going to miss Patchy.” She was very upset about leaving the cat home, so much reassurance was given that Uncle Matt would make sure her cats were tended to. I was quite moody myself because of nerves as this is only our second-long trip with our kids. I was also nervous about leaving my pets. My pets are 30 + rabbits and 20 + dairy goats, but am reassured that my awesome brother Matt will make sure all the animals are alive when I get home. The day started out very early 3:45 am to be exact. It was hard to drag our beautiful children ... read more

Another hot day for us today so we were up and going a little earlier than normal. Our first stop was Mount Rushmore. Tony has wanted to go there and walk the Presidential Trail ever since seeing it on "The Amazing Race". There were many nice views of the monument from all over the park. The comparisons between Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore are inevitable. The scale of Crazy Horse is immense but the work done for Mount Rushmore is awe inspiring as well. Like Crazy Horse the sculptor of Mount Rushmore died before it was completed and due to the start of WWII it was never finished. After spending some time (and eating lunch) at the monument we headed south to Custer State Park. The park has a great scenic drive through it and we ... read more