Deadwood

We prolonged our visit to the Black Hills a few more days because…we wanted to rent a UTV! A UTV is a Utility Task Vehicle. It should be called a Let’s-use-up-fossil-fuels-to-tour-the-Black-Hills-National-Forest Vehicle. There were so many of these around, we had to try it. We found a place in Deadwood that seemed like a good place to rent one. Since the hot tub at the fancy RV resort was closing after Labor Day, we stayed at a much cheaper campground right next to the Black Hills Off Road Rentals office.

We reported at 8:00 a.m. for our instructions, credit card in hand. It was only 37 degrees. We looked like we were going snowmobiling (which they rent in the winter). By the afternoon, it was 77 degrees and we were in short sleeves.

This was our ride, a Yamaha 2 seater UTV.  We had it for the full day.

They provide you with a tire repair kit in the glove box.

They also give you a well annotated laminated map of all the trails in the Black Hills National Forest.

We were also told to put the Avenza Maps app on my phone and download the trail maps for this region. Done.

And we were off, there was a trail that started 50 feet from our RV!  Notice the lack of a windshield!

Between the laminated map and the GPS on the phone, we had no trouble navigating. We got quite good at finding the signs that marked the trails. We were off. Our first destination was the fire tower on Custer’s Peak.

Custer’s Peak…that’s where we were heading

We were closer and could now see the fire tower.

We arrived at the parking area, but had to hike to the top.  You can just see our UTV…it’s the blue speck in the center of the picture.

Up top, we found the tower womanned (as opposed to manned).  The young lady was from West Virginia and had graduated with a degree in Forestry.  This was her seasonal job…staring through binoculars for 10 to 11 hours a day looking for signs of smoke.  It was nice to be able to ask her all the burning questions we had!

View from tower

We stopped for lunch.  Notice the UTV is no longer a bright, clean, shiny blue.  I didn’t expect that much dust!

Something else unexpected were the gates we had to open.  I got pretty good at opening barbed wire fences, and only got one sliver!

This is why the fences existed. Cows were grazing everywhere!

We spotted a groundhog and some deer (whose picture I seem to have misplaced).

We had wandered quite a ways from home and needed to take the main road to get back in time.

These UTVs can go up to 50 mph!

All in all, we put 70 miles on this UTV.  We had a blast.

Here’s a video I took that gives you an idea of what the trails were like. This one was pretty good, although a little rocky. We ended up on some that were narrow and steep. I had a few “close your eyes” moments. It’s a good thing Jim was driving (and thoroughly enjoying it!). The link to the video is here: https://youtu.be/yX3y-c9Moxs

By the end of the day, were were filthy, and so was everything we had with us.  But it was totally worth it.  It was a great fun day.

Homestead Gold Mine

Our final day in Deadwood we visited the Homestead Gold Mine. The mine is no longer in operation, it’s just too expensive to get the gold out of the ore. BUT, it turns out the miles deep tunnels are perfect for studying Particle Physics. So now the South Dakota’s Sanford Lab works in the tunnels of the mine. Scientists from around the world do neutrino experiments in these tunnels. The earth above prevents stray neutrinos outside from messing with their experiments. Who knew?

Homestead Gold Mine

This map shows all the levels in the mine.  The majority of the experiments take place at 4850 feet down.  But they tunnels go as deep as 8000 feet.

In the visitors center, there is the mobile sculpture hanging from the ceiling.  Aluminum was cut to represent all the tunnels in the ground.  And you can see the shape of the terrain above all the levels. It was quite impressive.

As a fund raiser, the visitor’s center will let you swing a golf club and get a guaranteed hole-in-one.

Here’s the tee.  See, it would be impossible to NOT get a hole-in-one.  You are driving the ball into the pit mine!  Clever.

Wow, that was a lot of pictures. We are in Wyoming now seeing some sights. On Tuesday we have an appointment with a RV repair shop in Gillette, Wyoming. The water valve on our toilet broke! Fortunately, it’s still usable…we just need to pour water down it manually.  The new commode is on order. So till it arrives, we will just have to find more fun things to do.