We just got back from our first big family road trip and it was AMAZING! We spent about 11 hours in the car (each way) and went to South Dakota to see the Badlands, Black Hills, and Mount Rushmore. I am normally a beach kind of person, but we had a fantastic time exploring the mountains and trying to do ALL the things. If you followed along on social media at all, you may have heard that a logging truck cut a cellular line somewhere (no, I'm not making that up) and we went a day without any type of phone or internet. I only found out because we stopped into the Deadwood Visitor's Center and asked for a schedule about the upcoming reenactments (since I couldn't look it up online). In Deadwood (where "Wild Bill" was killed back in 1876), they do old West-style shootouts and reenactments of some historic events surrounding Wild Bill and Calamity Jane EVERY. DAY. except Sundays. There were some really neat casinos and hotels in Deadwood and Lead (neighboring town), but if you are going to plan a trip there, I would strongly suggest one of the mountain cabins that is available for rent. You can get any size (families of 2 up to families of 15) and have a kitchen so that you don't have to spend the $$ to eat out every meal. We were there the week before Sturgis, so it was SUPER busy everywhere, but it was nice to go check out the downtown stores and restaurants, then go back to our nice quiet cabin to hang out, swim, or jump in the hot tub.
Like I mentioned, we did LOTS of things. We don't have any immediate plans to go back to the area, so I really wanted to see all there was to see. There were a few things we never made it to (like Custer State Park and the Crazy Horse memorial), but we were pretty swamped the whole week anyway.
*We did not drive the whole distance in one day on the way out to SD. We opted to leave Friday afternoon and get 3 hours of the drive out of the way, staying overnight in Sioux City, Iowa.
Day 1 -
Badlands: We reached the Badlands (pic of kids at top of article is taken in the Badlands) around 1pm and knew that we couldn't check into our cabin in Lead until 4pm. The Badlands are basically the "scenic route" (instead of I-90) before you get to the Black Hills and adds 45 minutes to an hour if you don't do a lot of hiking around in there. There is a "fee" for each car because it's a National Park, it was $20-25 and more for buses and RVs. It was totally worth doing it once, I don't know if I would do it every time I went that way. It was also nice to get out and climb around.
Day 2 -
Cosmos: This was VERY cool (and inexpensive) it is a place where the gravitational force is a little off... well a lot off. I have a video of water pouring UPHILL. Seriously. Google some really cool pictures of it. The kids also got to crack their own geode (and keep all the pieces) for a mere $6.
Bear Country USA: EXPENSIVE. And busy, like the bumper to bumper traffic kind. We went on Sunday morning, and I didn't even think about it being busy. I wasn't really disappointed, but could not find out how much the fee was until we were stuck in line with 15 other cars. $60 you guys, for 4 people. On the bright side, if you are a bigger family, they do have a $65/car maximum... This was definitely the most wildlife we saw during our trip, it was similar to a wildlife reserve and the animals just roamed the park. There were bears circling our car on more than one occasion and a reindeer walked right up to us as well. There are staff in towers that are supervising everything and LOTS of signs instructing you to stay in your car and not roll down any windows.
Dinosaur Park (Rapid City): FREE. This was a bunch of dinosaur statues on top of a hill overlooking Rapid City and a GREAT place to let the kids climb around with a GREAT view.
Day 3 -
Broken Boot Gold Mine: The Broken Boot Gold Mine is right on the highway between Deadwood and Lead, which was perfect for where we were. There are a few different types of gold panning adventures, some that are further away and even last 4-6 hours, but this one seemed the most kid friendly. The tour is only about an hour, but still covers what gold mines were like when they were functional (bonus for being educational!) and they can do a quick gold panning experience, without getting bored with the whole thing. There were toddlers on our tour that did fine and my teenager thought it was pretty cool too. It was definitely affordable, especially compared to the longer tours, and I highly recommend it.
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Days of 76 Museum: Apparently there are a few museums in Deadwood, but the Days of 76 Museum is the newest and had a pretty wide array of exhibits, including some that were interactive. This was my first choice because it seemed the most appropriate for the kids, but I am sure that they would have learned something if we would have ventured to the other museums. Darrel is the exhibit director and told us all about his plans for the exhibits, what is coming next, and was very knowledgeable about all of the artifacts. He stated that he loves to make interactive displays whenever possible to keep the museum interesting and educational for all of the guests. The kids learned a lot about the old West, rodeos, Native Americans, Wild Bill, AND got to see dozens of carriages that are still actively used in the Days of 76 parade each year. Also, because my small child just couldn't get enough gold pieces and gems, we let him dredge for gemstones at the museum. It was only $4 and he ended up with a WHOLE bag of gems and rocks, including different types of quartz, shark teeth (for real, because the mountains were underwater waaaay back in the day), calcite, tumbled gemstones, and pyrite (Fool's gold).
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Day 4 -
Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center: The Sanford Lab is basically an old Homestake gold mine that now houses an underground research facility in the city of Lead. They offer VERY inexpensive trolley tours around the city and at the surface level of the lab. In the lab, they are currently studying how neutrinos travel through the atmosphere and the tour guide will tell you all about it. The trolley ride was awesome and we got to see quite a bit of the history of Lead, in addition to part of the research facility. You can hit a golf ball into the Upper Cut and the gift shop at their location also has the best prices on Black Hills Gold in the area (if that is something you are looking for).
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Historic Deadwood: We went for lunch and to revamp after the Sanford Lab (our cabin is closer to Lead than Deadwood), then went to the Deadwood visitor's center. They have some of their own exhibits on the history of Deadwood, restrooms and water fountains for the weary traveler, and a trolley system for getting around town. They were also doing some contests: one to encourage visitors to take selfies with Wild Bill images (#wildbillme) and another was a passport to get stamped at various attractions (some were free and some had a small fee), then turn them in for a prize. We got so busy that we forgot to turn ours in, but we did get to check out the historic Mount Moriah cemetary and witness two of the historic reenactments: a shootout on the historic main street and the scuffle between Wild Bill and Jack McCall in Saloon #10, preceding the shooting death of Wild Bill and trial of Jack McCall (which are also reenacted each day). They have detailed printed schedules of what was happening around town and during the Summer season, there are about a dozen FREE things to see each day (except Sunday). They also have TONS of live music and activities in the evenings (especially at Saloon #10) if you want to go check out Main Street Deadwood at night.
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And it's only day 4! I have 2 more exciting stories (with amazing adventures) to show you, but this article is getting long... so I am going to start another to round off our week in the Black Hills...
Stay tuned!
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Part 2 includes Mount Rushmore, ziplining through the trees, and horseback riding through the mountains! (Fun fact: the owner of Andy's trail rides is from Waterloo!)
