Finally a Summer's End Vacation Part III

Hello friends and followers of Pinmapple. Here we are the ending of my road trip. I seen a lot and had some great experiences. If you missed part I you can Click here and part II Here to catch up if you want.

The journey began on Sunday morning. A wake up and some good breakfast courtesy of my sister. It was a simple breakfast just my side arm (coffee) and some biscuits & gravy. After that a quick trip to the gas station and we're on the way to Rapid City, South Dakota (SD).

On the way to our destination we made two pit stops. One was at a place called 1880 Town.I have already wrote an article exclusively on this so I will share some bonus photos. Actually some of them I didn't find when I wrote the article, haha. If you haven't read and our interested than click here.

The first photo I would have totally used in my original post if I had would have fond it. In the background is a 14 sided barn. Very unique style barn that is huge. I never got angle to take a complete picture of it. It held many artifacts and antiques on two levels.

The second photo is a few older buildings that were bound together. This was not in the 1880 town so this to me was like a taste sample of what is on the other side of the barn. Connected on the side not seen was a modern gas station.

The third photo is an old western barber shop. I didn't get the best photos of it inside because it was wired off. It did have some old barber tools, a chair and a small lobby that would have accommodated maybe three people.

The forth picture is that have a coach wagon. From what I was told it was a Wells Fargo wagon. To bad some old paint or canvas didn't survive. For it being old, the frame and everything looks in solid shape.

Here we have a look out tower. It's approximately 30 feet high. Now I don't think it is something that was brought here. It doesn't have that smell or look of something over 100 years old, maybe I'm wrong. It did serve as a good look out point for the entire town including the farm house in the picture below. We didn't walk the quarter mile away to see it. I've seen many of these growing up in the country side.

Farming was a much necessity for those who lived outside of town. I just love this horse powered farming equipment some perhaps were for steam powered tractors. I imagine most were done with horses due to the expenses needed to buy a tractor.

I've seen some old buildings but never one that said livery. It's basically a horse stable where you can pay rent to keep your horses. Country folks would have used their own barns but city folks more than likely need some places to store their horse.

Here at 1880 town they had horses and donkeys. They also have a herd of Texas longhorns but they were not out in area close by at the time. Donkeys would have been used for the heavier farm plows.

The town had three roaming goats. They were friendly and you could go up to them and pet them. Goats are living walking lawn mowers. These were no different they were eating everything green.

The surprise here was that there was a camel here. I learned something I didn't know. Camels evolved in North America some 35 million years ago. They went extinct here over 10 million years ago. The old world did not have them first. Still why is it grazing here? I don't have an answer for that, haha.

Our next pit stop was at the Badlands National Park. Again I share with you photos not recently shared. These rock formations were uniquely amazing. The park seems to go on forever. Some formations are just miles of rock formations with no greenery.Than a drive around a corner grass lands lead up to them. A little further the formations are partially green covered. We spent quite a bit of time driving through the park and stopping at many viewpoints. If you want to see more of the Badlands check out the article I wrote here.

After this we continued are drive to Rapid City. Once we arrived at our hotel we ordered pizza from a small water park attached to the hotel. We ate watched some television and went to bed.

The next morning after a free continental breakfast provided by the hotel we left. We were on our way to Jewel cave one of the longest caves in the world. That all changed when we passed through Hill City, SD.

I had a choice to pass this train depot that had some show case steam engine locomotives. Well the thought process didn't take long we were stopping. Once again I give to you some photos I haven't shared. I would have surely fit Chug in my original post but I had so many pictures to go through on this vacation.

This was a great experience for me. The biggest part was it's my first train ride. Above is the actual steam engine train I rode on. The scenery on this short 10 mile journey was spectacular. It passed through the Black Hills National Forrest. Lots of nature to see to include hills, trees, a small creek, wildlife, old mining operations and much more. To see more trains and to experience more scenery check out the article I wrote here by clicking here.

This was probably the high light of my trip. I never imagined I would have rode on a train on this trip. It is also made me research other steam engine trip opportunities. I found one not far from me that actually provides longer runs on special occasions. If the price is right I may be a passenger again on the rails :)

We had some time in-between before needing to be back to catch our train. We drove by Mount Rushmore pulled over on the road and took a few pictures. We visited here before and really didn't think it was necessary to pay admission to walk around the many gift shops and read it's history again. Our next stop was Custer State Park.

Custer State Park is a rather large park (71,000 acres) that offers amazing landscape and various wildlife. There are four different paths you can go on. Due to our time restraints we only had time to do one. We chose Wildlife Loop Road. Thinking this would provide the best opportunity to see the most wildlife. I've seen all but one path. The next time I visit here I will check out Iron Mountain Road.

The plan was to spend about an hour or so here. I initially thought it would take about 20 minutes to get here from Mount Rushmore. I was wrong or Google navigation brought us to an entrance much farther away. It took us around 45 minutes to get there and we drove through the park in about 2 hours. So no times to check out any caves.

The park had a few view points and I thought this stair climb was kind of cool. The bad part that was noticed immediately was the height of the stairs. I'm long legged and it was a bit high for me. After a few steps I opted to walk alongside the stairs. Once at the top it did offer some good view points.

There is a lot of wildlife at this park. The wildlife available to see here is bison, coyotes, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, elk, mountain goats, pronghorns, burros, prairie dogs, white tailed deer, and muke deer according to the pamphlet they handed to us when we entered the park. It was kind of disappointing because the two hours we spent here we only captured less than a handful of them. We did see a few herds of bison but none of them were close. The little squirrel looking animals are prairie dogs. We did see a mountain lion at about 150 yards away but by the time I got my phone ready to take a picture it was gone.

The burros were the only close up animals we seen.This caused a traffic jam as they were on or around the road. In total there were about 15 or 20. Despite all of this I never thought about a getting a good picture of them. My son and I weren't interested in petting them as many other people were. It was towards the end of the journey here and we wanted to get back to Hill City.

On the way to Hill City we seen quite a bit of stone walls alongside the highways. We ran into the unfinished Crazy Horse monument. We didn't plan it and didn't have time to get close and visit it. So this picture was taken from my car at a red light. Many say it a waste of money to see primarily because it's unfinished. A few have told me that there is a really good Native American museum there. That alone makes it worthy to check out in the future.

After we got to Hill City and our train ride was over we had to make the track back home. Just prior to arriving to Rapid City I see this beautiful house on a hill top. Oh I bet this beauty would be a lot of people's dream house,right? Soon after I took a picture of Rapid City coming down a hill. What a great city to live in that is just minutes away from many great things to see.

We drove for another 3 hours until we arrived my sister's cabin. We spent the night there and left in the morning to head to my mother's place which is another two hours away.

Once at my mother's place she had lunch set up for us. Tatortot casserole, macaroni salad, and some baked buns. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures. To be honest I was hungry and I didn't have breakfast that morning. I assure you it was really good. After that we looked at some photo albums and just chatted. I was given a few albums to take home. I can't wait to share them and tell you more stories.

I was on vacation for 10 days and this road trip was for 6 of them. I seen so many things on this trip and it feels like I'm closing a half read book because there is so much we didn't get to see. Next time I'm sure I will have a great time as well.

This is all I have for you today. Thanks for stopping by I really appreciate it. Take care, be safe, and have a great rest of your week.