On Sunday August 17th, 23 people, 2 dogs and 14 cars left on this year’s Grand Loop Tour to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Leaving from Brighton, we started on I-76 before heading North onto CO-14 and into the wide-open plains of Nebraska. We stopped in Scottsbluff for lunch and made short visits to Ft. Robinson State Park and Wind Cave National Park before reaching our destination, the rustic Bavarian Inn in Custer, SD.
The small town of Custer pays homage to its western roots, with statues of bison on every corner of the main street. The town is the oldest in the Black Hills and was founded in 1875 after gold was discovered by an Army expedition led by then Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer.
We had dinner on Sunday with a few from the tour at Buglin’ Bill Restaurant.
On Monday we were on our own to explore the local area. Most of the group availed themselves of the suggested itinerary which included visit to Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore. Some even braved a dirt road to see the vast herd of bison which occupies the park.
We travelled through Custer State Park and saw interesting rock formations, one lane tunnels through cliffs and scenic vistas along the way. Late we stopped at Mount Rushmore to take in the impressive monument and had lunch in their cafe. We returned to Custer (the long way) and in the evening we had dinner at the Sage Creek Grill.
We gathered at the local Feel Good Café on Tuesday to stage for our third day of the tour. We started out with a visit to Crazy Horse Memorial just a few miles from our hotel. We spent about an hour touring the museum and viewing the memorial.
From there the route got a little rough. Extensive construction in the area closed portions of US 385 and turned other portions into an unpaved construction zone with significant delays. After getting through the construction and onto paved highways, we headed to lunch at the Alpine Inn in Hill City. This historic inn featured a delightful German menu. After spending some time in Hill City, we were on our way to our hotel for the next two nights in Deadwood.
Our visit to Deadwood coincided with a classic car event, so we got to see many great cars from the 40’s through the 70’s. Main Street in Deadwood was blocked off to display the cars with several bands playing at outdoor venues along the street.
Since Deadwood is a gambling city, it was hard to find a restaurant that was not buried deep in a casino. We finally found Buffalo Bodega and had a nice dinner.
And of course, Deadwood is the city in which Wild Bill Hichcock met his fate.
On Thursday we were again on our own. John Donahue, our tour chair, provided us with a suggested route to see the local sights, including museums in Sturgis, Roughneck Falls, Spearfish Canyon, the town of Sundance and Devils Tower in Wyoming.
We first visited Sanford Lab Underground Research Facility Visitor Center. The facility started life as the Homestake Mine in the 1870s but now the underground passages have now been converted to a research facility to study cosmic radiation reaching deep underground in the earth to search for neutrinos. From there we visited Roughneck Falls, the travelled up the scenic Spearfish Canyon to I90 and then on to Sundance Wyoming for lunch at the Longhorn Saloon. After lunch we visited Devil’s Tower National Monument. It is quite an impressive formation, but since it was 100 degrees out, our exploration on the trail surrounding the monument was rather limited. We travelled back to the hotel along local highways WY-24 and SD-34 passing through several small towns before making our way back to Deadwood.
Dinner at the Horseshoe Restaurant (First Gold Gaming) – not very good.
Thursday marked the last day of the tour. On Friday some of the group continued to tour the Black Hills while other headed home after this memorable tour.
