Black Hills Here We Come!

June 14, 2012

Since departing for South Dakota on June 10th, Sean, our 15 year old grandson, has learned how to set up everything inside and outside the RV.  There is only two things involving the set up of the RV at a camp site that he has not done, hook up the sewer hose and drive the RV.  Most of this he learned on his own without being asked, and we really appreciated all of his help.

We left Wall, SD and made the short drive west on I90 to Box Elder, SD arriving late morning.  Box Elder is where our mail forwarder is located, and is just east of Rapid City.  We picked up our mail and headed to the DMV to get our South Dakota drivers license.  Then we made arrangements to get our car, truck and 5th wheel registered in South Dakota.

Here is our campsite at Americas Campground in Box Elder.  The building behind our 5th wheel is the mail forwarder's office.

Just down the road is a Cabellas.  We stopped there.  Sean bought a fishing pole, I bought a tackle box, and Kitty picked up a few things.

June 15th, we are on our way into the Black Hills to Custer, SD where we will meet our friends from Colorado, John and Dale.  Our route takes us on highway 79 south, 36 west, and 16A west right through the middle of Custer State park.  This road has sharp curves and some steep hills and the speed limit is only 35mph.  But, the scenery was beautiful. 

Our destination is Custer's Gulch, a wonderful campground nestled in a beautiful valley in the Black Hills.  It is also located on the same spot that Custer stopped to camp during the Black Hills expedition of 1874.  A year prior to the expedition, the USA began a serious depression that would last about 4 years.  The stock market crashed, many business failed, and unemployment reached 20%.  President Grant, and his fellow republicans, decided the best way to stimulate the economy was to develop new lands to the west, and, hopefully find gold.  (Our US currency was based on the gold standard at that time).

The man picked to lead the expedition through the Black Hills was Custer.  Even though this expedition was in direct violation of the treaty of 1868, Americans were desperate to get the economy going again and develop the west.  So, Custer took ten companies of the 7th Cavalry, two infantry companies, two miners (to look for gold), a photographer, four newspaper men, nearly two thousand horses and mules, and 110 wagons.  I don't think they were going to sneak up on the Indians! They departed Fort Abraham Lincoln on July 2, 1874 and would return to Fort Abraham Lincoln August 30th.  The Sioux were spending the summer farther west.  So, Custer and his men did not clash with any Indians during this expedition.

Custer described the Black Hills, "In no private or public park have I ever seen such a profuse display of flowers.  Every step of our march that day was amid flowers of the most exquisite color and perfume". 

And here we are set up at Custer's Gulch waiting for John and Dale to arrive.  This will be our base for the next four days.


June 16th, we drove about 25 miles to Mount Rushmore.

From left: Sean, Ethan, Sophie, and Victoria.

Mount Rushmore was never finished.  The original concept was to show each person from the waste up.  This is a miniature replica of what it was suppose to look like.

Of course, the original concept did not have Sean and Kitty in it! We'll have more pictures of Mount Rushmore later.

June17th, feeling full of energy, we decided to  hike up the "hill", as John called it, to see where Custer's name was carved into a rock during the expedition of 1874.  Because it was a "hill" we didn't take our walking sticks.  Remind me to ask John next time to clarify what a hill is,  I call it a darn mountain.  It started out walking up hill, but when we got to the big chunks of granite, the going got tougher, and the elevation was considerably higher.

Here's the hiking crew.

From left to right: Kitty, Kallie, Sean, Victoria, Ethan, Dale, Sophie, John, and Craig.

This is the "hill" climbed to see Custer's name carved in a rock.  This picture does not really reflect the size of this "hill".

This is John taking a picture of the carving.  The valley below is our campground.

This is a picture of the "G Custer 74" carving.  After 138 years of erosion, it's a little difficult to see in this photo.

Here are some shots from the hill top looking at the valley where we were camped.  The photos taken in 1874 look almost exactly like this except there are more trees now and the roads added.

The next blog will take us to an actual Mammoth dig site.  We'll see some wild life as we drive through Custer State Park, and we'll take a thrilling ride on the Iron Mountain Highway.  It's going to be a great mixture of fun, beauty, and excitement.