We flew in yesterday, saw Mount Rushmore. We are going to see Crazy Horse today, maybe fly around it or the Badlands. We are going to Deadwood on Thursday. We will go to Custer State Park sometime.

Any other suggestions on what to do to kill some time. Thanks in advance!

Needles Highway is entertaining.

Spearfish Canyon where they filmed final scene Dances With Wolves. Fish hatchery at Spearfish Canyon. If you have time do not miss Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Jewel Cave if it is real hot outside. Lighted with tour guides and always cool. +1 on Spearfish Canyon and Needles Highway especially if you are on two wheels. The kid wasn't much for sight seeing when I took him out there. I paid the $10-$12 Mount Rushmore entrance fee and when I got out of the car, the kid said "Yeah, I saw it on the way in. I'm staying in the car to listen to the radio."

I didn't realize that there was a fish hatchery in Spearfish Canyon, but it would sure make sense because the trout in those clear streams along the road were still in hatchery formation. I was sure thinking that I should have brought a rod along.

Isn't Bike Week in Sturgis happening about now? Not sure I'd recommend it unless you are on a Harley, but after you've seen 10,000 Harleys, seeing 100,000 isn't ten times better. Rushmore, the canyon, caves and Needles are there year around. Lots of buffalo out that way, but the Badlands themselves were kind of a yawn for me.

Devil's Tower is pretty unique.

Do some hiking in the Black Hills. Cathedral Spires was incredible and you'll lose most of the crowds.

Deadwood,.

There is some sort of screwball steak house over there that serves a tenderloin for pennies on the dollar.

I will ask wife.

https://www.bearcountryusa.com/

The first stop we made in the Badlands we saw this..........

when your in Deadwood take some time to go to Lead and do the Homestake mine tour - above suggestions are all good. We have been staying in custer state park for a week. Great weather and interesting neighbors .

Don't go into Crazy Horse. There is nothing to see. If you stop on the side of the highway you can see the thing just as well.

I just like driving around out there, but that's me. It's a pretty fair drive from the Hills, but Devils Tower is pretty cool. There's wildlife everywhere you look, also, if you are into that.

If you go to bear country, you will see a ton of free roaming bears. There were multiple bears mating last times I was there. They have all these bear Cubs in an enclosure where you can watch them. I wouldn't call it wildlife but its pretty funny to watch all these cute little clubs running around.

That is BS. There is a lot of Indian art and artifacts inside. The Crazy horse bike at the entrance is great.

Wall Drug

Firehouse Brewery in Rapid City is nice and great food!

Drive from one famous dirt pile to the next. BTDT, on the never again list.

But then again, I've seen a lot of dirt piles

Have a great vacation, Hanco!

Pics!

The Alpine Inn.

Hill City.

Hanco: The smallish big game trophy area inside "Wall Drug" is worth seeing.
Be sure and take your binoculars to Badlands National Grasslands for Bighorn Sheep viewing - was through there earlier this month and saw Bighorns in may spots!
Enjoy and fly careful.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I live in the Black Hills. Lots of good suggestions above but I don't see the second most popular attraction, Reptile Gardens listed. It is well worth your time and admission.

We have prairie rattlers. They are the smallest and least aggressive. I spend lots of time in prairie dog towns and have never had an issue. They light up and crawl away, good snakes.

From those above:
Alpine Inn, go for lunch, dinner is a LONG wait and they don't accept reservations.
Badlands if you want to see Bighorns. Most times I see sheep, I see them every time I hike there.
Crazy Horse for the native artifacts, not so much for the monument
Rushmore for certain and take the time to sit through the movie presentation
Custer Park Game Loop in the early morning or evening.
West end of Wind Cave to see buffalo. Heck, south of the Badlands most always has bison if you look with binoculars.
Black HIlls Harley Davidson if you want to see more Harleys for sale than anywhere else in the world. Pre rally stuff going on today.
Wall Drug is a joke and like a good joke probably worth a visit.
Stay out of Keystone, it's tourist hell.
Hill City, Custer, and Hot Springs are quaint.
Bear Country is fine if you've never or seldom seen western big game.
Sturgis Rally is next week and lots of riders arrive a week early to beat the crowds - causing a crowd.
Downtown Rapid City is very nice, First Stop Guns on Main Street is a cool old school gun store.
Smoking Gun, our indoor shooting range, has lots of Class III weapons for rent.

Wind Cave and Custer Parks are beautiful w/ great hiking and lots of animals. The entire area is beautiful and has miles of dirt roads that will get you away from most of the crowds and harleys. Google Earth is your friend. My wife wanted to see Bear Country and it was worth the trip. We have always gone in the spring before Memorial Day so not too may people but the area is to good to miss, enjoy.



mike r

Mammoth Graveyard was cool in my opinion.

+1

Also the wild horse sanctuary. Take the tour.

Thank you, we are staying in Hill City

Go to Sturgis today & watch a tumble weed roll down the street. Then go back late next week & see how 500,000 motorcycles, a thousand tattoo parlors, 10,000 tee shirt vendors can change things.

Has anyone done the helicopter tours? Is it worth it?

Be sure to see the night show at Mt Rushmore. Very patriotic and if you are a veteran you're going to be appreciated. Collective gasp when they light up the presidents. Needles highway. Sturgis was very boring. Badlands was ok. In all, I really like South Dakota.

Absolutely! We were there when the girls were young. Just happened to be the last performance of the season for the orchestra.. Gave me serious chills.

My friend said the Rushmore helicopter tour was fantastic.

Hot Springs mammoth excavation

Black Hills are great...just do whatever.

Love that area.

In the real badlands get out of the car, ogle the formations, take a few pictures, get back in the car and leave.

Be like teddy and ride a horse across for days at a time.

Found some buffalo in Custer state park. The park is beautiful.

Yes it is. Well worth the money IMO.

I liked it. Saw three of four wolves chasing a big ole black bear. And the cubs were fun to watch.

Hill City - Alpine Inn, Jon Crane Art Gallery, 1880 train from HC to Keystone and back.

Keystone - Ruby House Restaurant, Powder House Lodge Restaurant, shops downtown and, of course, Mt Rushmore.

Custer - Museum downtown, restaurant at the lodge in Custer State Park and the wildlife roaming at the park, Crazy Horse.

Spearfish Canyon - Lodge and restaurant, walk to where final scene of DWW was filmed.

Rapid City - The Legend museum, Prairie Edge downtown, Firehouse Brewery downtown as well.

Badlands - excellent scenery, decent restaurant near the ranger HQ.

Deadwood - good museum and cemetery.

Lots and lots of other stuff to do in the Black Hills. Just look around, you won't be bored unless you want to be. There was a stretch of 11 years we vacationed in the Hills 9 times. My bride had a highly stressful job and that was one of the few places she said she could really relax . . . I agreed and didn't balk at all. We even made it back there from Arkansas a few years back.

Alpine Inn?

First Stop gun shop in Rapid City is pretty cool.

I guess I’m too late to tell you to save your money on Crazy Horse.
My wife and I spent over a month out west this summer seeing the sights and looking for a town to move to in Montana.
Custer Battlefield was my favorite. Crazy Horse was in last place.
Walk around Devils Tower was cool. Custer Park in the Blackhills was nice.
Yellowstone was kinda lame.
Trout fishing was fantastic.

I liked Crazy horse, doubt if it will ever be finished.

First Stop Gun in Rapid City.
Minuteman Missile museum. https://www.nps.gov/mimi/planyourvisit/maps.htm

https://www.nps.gov/badl/planyourvisit/upload/Bicycling%20Site%20Bulletin.pdf

Crazy Horse exhibit Center

Handsome couple!

Sylvan lake was pretty cool to walk/hike around.
Also the kids thought hot springs was fun

This might sound silly 😜 but be bad!!!!

Reptiles Gardens is pretty good. They have a croc there that is hella big. There is a large cave down by Hot Springs that is supposed to be good as well. Fish Hatchery in Spearfish is fun.

Hanco! No wonder you take that girl dancing. Have fun, my grandson calls the Crazy Horse the pull my finger monument, I don't know where he got that.



mike r

If you have the time the Devils Tower is worth seeing

I too live in the Black Hills and I'll echo what Boise says plus the following.
Founding Fathers at Independence Hall exhibit located between Reptile Gardens and Bear Country
Several great winery and breweries from Hill City to Spearfish in addition to the Firehouse in downtown Rapid City
Climb to Harney Peak renamed as Black Elk Creek a few years back via Sylvan Lake

Indeed they are!

Ol' Hanco married up!

Like most of us, that married above our station...

Damn, the actual motorcycle Crazy Horse rode into battle.
Wonder how much gas cost back then?

We stopped at the Crazy Horse place, and I thought it was pretty pricey. Didn't go up to the carving, but did enjoy the museum. I did enjoy the drive along the Needles Highway and the Badlands. Ate a good burger at the town of Custer, and enjoyed the Injun run restaurant in the Badlands. Rushmore was pretty cool. Planned on going back there this year, but we haven't been able to get away yet, so we may head in another direction.

All that...

Thank you, that is a true statement, 33 years on Thursday, she could have done a lot better!

Yup . . . BTDT .

I went to bear country when I was a little boy and loved watching the cubs frolic and play. That’s cool that it’s still there 40 year later. 👍

I want to take the kids one of these days but they’re getting grown and I’m running out of days for a “one of these days” type trip. Our middle son graduates next year and wants to go to Hawaii for his graduation trip. His girlfriend (a wonderful young lady) has only been as far as Montana to go hunting so we’re planning 2 weeks on Maui for the 5 of us. Fall is the time of the year that I’d like to go but our son has football 8 days a week until the season is over so maybe next fall we’ll get to the Badlands.

I have a tough time going into game rich country armed only with a camera, just like watching fish in a clear water stream makes me crazy when I don’t have a rod and reel. 😁

Lolol....I thought the same thing.

WTF does a motorcycle have to do with Crazy Horse or anything to do with the Wild West?

I dunno, could have something to do with the 500,000 bikers that'll show up, shortly.

These days, that IS the Wild West.

Went to the mammoth dig, caves, drove around a lot.
It is beautiful here. Had dinner at the Alpine, great food.

The Cosmos is worth the stop if you're killing time.

It will make you scratch your melon.


https://www.cosmosmysteryarea.com/

Took a chopper tour of the Badlands, stopped at wall.

Cash rich.....

Helicopter tour ain't cheap

Love the whole area.. have fun.

We stopped at the Cosmos thing on the way back, it was good. Riding the 1880 train to Keystone tomorrow, on to Deadwood to spend our anniversary on the first.

hanco,
Glad you're enjoying the area. Happy Anniversary on Thursday!

Looks like that helicopter is marking his territory pretty good.

Thanks for all the great ideas!

We spent a day in Deadwood. It rained all day so we spent most of the afternoon in the # 10 Saloon. I went to the bathroom and my wife volunteered us to be part of the Wild Bill killing reenactment.

I was the guy that stayed seated after Bill was "shot" in the back of the head. When it happened, I leaned down and whispered to him "you got a big fucgkin hole in your head, Bill."

He started laughing and said "goddammit! shutup!"






Alcohol might have been a factor.....

Not to hijack the thread, but somebody should start carving a Trump likeness out of one of those rocks!

This was on a t-shirt in Keystone today.

Road the 1880 train from Hill City to Keystone and back, saw a good buck and a couple of small ones.

Looks like you are having a good time in the Hills. We spent our 20th anniversary at the Bullock Hotel in Deadwood.

Happy anniversary to you and your bride.

I’m in the Bullock hotel right now.

Went to the the Devils Monument today!

It’s a little far, and I don’t what your schedule is but Medora ND ( musical always use to be great and the pitch fork fondue) is a nice visit.

Shoot, I just saw this. you were a stone's throw away from my place when you were at the mammoth site.

Devils tower is very interesting and you can see it from so far away.

I’m here as I type this... Got here Thursday afternoon ... 34 hours with three drivers. So far did Spearfish canyon, the back way to Deadwood from Nemo to Rapid City (twice). Tomorrow we head to the Badlands from Sturgis... Saturday to Devils tower via Belle Fouche, Mt, Stoville , Hewlett and on to Devils Tower. I love this country to ride in.

What to do in the badlands...

Get RayBan Voyagers, pearl button shirt, N frame 44, look like Brad Pitt, get a girl friend, hop in the Caddy ragtop, hit the truck stop for gas, smokes and beer, tell her they'll never take us alive and push accelerator into firewall and blast out into it

We have one more day to fool around Deadwood, then back to the heat and work!

This thread got so much better when I read it on my personal laptop.

Hanko's pictures do not show up on my work computer. They just say {linked image}

Glad you're having a good time and Happy Anniversary!

You are where my wife and I honeymooned 16 years ago come September.

Crazy Horse hasn't changed much since then. The best part about that was the documentary video of the old guy that started carving it.