Prostitution to Patriotism

Day 5 - It was supposed to be a fairly limited day of just doing some sights about Rapid City and Deadwood. but it turned into a WOW day rather quickly. 
Like most people's day- it began in studying about prostitutes and their impact on the development of cities in the west, a 15 year old one(prostitute) at that, and it ended with our singing the National Anthem with about 1500 other people.

Our travels today were to take us back in time to the old west period of "Wild" Bill Hickok and the town of Deadwood, South Dakota.  The town which was destroyed by fire a couple of times, finally re-did itself in brick and stone to prevent further damages. Now it tries to have the wild west flavor- but is really a mining town.  We toured around it and the neighboring town of Lead, which mostly involved looking into an 1800 foot deep, by 1/2 mile wide mining pit and learning all about gold mining. 

 A quick trip to the Chubby Chipmunk for some very good (so I'm told) hand dipped truffles brought us to the decision to go south to Mt. Rushmore.

On the trip down we stopped at the "Mistletoe Ranch"- all Christmas items and some very good ideas for the displaying of items in the house (check back at Christmas time to see if we follow through on them), and it was here that Dee Dee discovered the secret to children.  "There would be fewer spoiled children if you could spank the Grandparents."  Melia that's for you!!

 Then it was off to Keystone a town of 326 residents and 1000 tourists. Lots of shops.

 I got Dee Dee to take a chair lift to the top of a hill to View Mt. Rushmore and the valley town below. But more importantly to take the 2000 ft slide down the hill. 

This what it looks like coming down the slide-and no we don't know who this is.

The ride on the sleds was a twisting turning affair where you could control the speed you went.  We left at the same time and I had to wait for a couple of minutes at the bottom for Dee Dee to arrive.  She enjoyed it by the time she got down and wanted to go again, but one more stop was further up the road, Mt. Rushmore. We think of our children and how much they would have loved this slide!

View of the town of Keystone nestled in the Black Hills.

The four Presidents and the Mt. are quite impressive. We stayed late for the patriotic show that ends with the Mt. being lite up.  It was here we did the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem.  All in all it was a great day on the- discover just a little bit more about America tour.