Deadwood is an interesting town, about an hour and half’s drive east from
Devils Tower , Wyoming . It’s the dregs of what appears to be an old gold rush
town, with everything still standing like staged sets. This is helped along by
what appears to be the *actual* stage sets from the HBO series of the same name
(http://www.hbo.com/deadwood/?ntrack_para1=leftnav_category0_show7). You can
visit old gold mines in the real Deadwood, SD, and even visit the graves of Wild
Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane.
Americana Sign Watch:
Grizzly Gulch Road
Wrinkle Valley Road
Holy Smoke Resort
Rattlesnake Jake's
Wrinkled Rock Trail
Horse Thief Lake Campground
Pheasants Forever Habitat Area
Coyote Blues B&B
Dead Broke Street (I think I have lived here)
Mount Rushmore (http://www.nps.gov/moru/) has been very built up since Wes saw
in years ago. Then, you simply came across it as a kind of miraculous surprise
as you drove through the Black Hills National Forest . Today, a large parking
garage is the first thing you come to, with an $8 hold up so you can park and go
look at their exhibits and basically, cover the cost of maintaining the
sculpture, which wants to act like crumbling rock and erode into the
nothingness. Wes said George Washington looked a lot more like the surrounding
rock than he does today – much whiter and contrasting with the background. We
mused over how much it took to tart up George on a regular basis, and spackle in
all the cracks? And figured the $8 explained it – because there really was no
reason to park and walk up to it…you can’t get any closer (it’s not as if you
can shimmy up on top of it like Cary Grant in North by Northwest (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/)
and look up Lincoln ’s nose. And you actually need a long shot to take it
in…what good is it to get up close enough to look up at it over your head?
After Rushmore, it’s only a 17-mile trip further to go check out Crazy Horse,
another ambitious carving project still in the works (http://www.crazyhorse.org)
that commemorates a badass Indian who stood up to The Man, and who has now
become a really ambitious art project. The difference between the intended
finished project, and how far it’s gotten so far, is staggering. What’s even
more amazing is that all the “carving” is done by blowing parts away from the
mountain with dynamite, which, let’s face it, is an ironically very White Man
thing to do (want something done? Blow the @#$% out of it!)
On our way back, we saw a big horn sheep looking at us, Aries-like, from the
side of the road J and stopped for cheap Mexican food since it was Taco
Tuesdays. One state away from the Canadian border, and the top draw is still
South of the Border.
Weird landscape in Deadwood...check it out.