Saturday, May 23, 2009
Rapid City to Deadwood and Mount Rushmore
On Saturday we took a long driving tour of Black Hills National Park and Mount Rushmore, ending back in Rapid City for another night. It was definitely the best part of South Dakota and we saw lots of interesting sights.
The first sight was an unexpected one - a Norwegian stave church! I've learned about these churches in doing research for my website and they are so beautiful and interesting. The "stave" refers to the upright wooden posts that form the frame of the church. They are entirely made of wood, have Viking-style carvings and, strangely, look a lot like Zen temples! Most of them date from around the 12th century.
I never thought I'd get to see one of these in South Dakota! We saw the sign on our way out of Rapid City and drove through a suburban neighborhood to get there. Called the Chapel in the Hills, it was built in 1969 by local benefactor of Norwegian descent and there are services every evening in the summer.
Of course it's not as good as the real thing, but the replica is very well done and in a nice wooded setting. When you walk in the church, an audio tour begins on the loudspeaker.
And not too much further down the road, we turned off for another interesting sign - Thunderhead Underground Falls, located inside a 19th-century gold mine shaft. It was so fun. The surrounding forest was beautiful and it we had such a good time walking all the way to the back of the tunnel to see the falls.
The weather began to clear up after this and our drive through the Black Hills National Forest was very peaceful and scenic.
Our third stop was planned, but wasn't a traditional sight - David wanted to do some target shooting in the National Forest (where it's legal), and we found a great spot off a side road to do so. Although I'm not as nearly enthusiastic as David, I grew up doing a lot of target shooting so it was fun for me too. And it was a nice excuse to hang out in nature for a half-hour.
We really showed those granola bars who's boss.
Back on the road, I read about a little town called Rochford (pop. 25) in my guidebook, and persuaded David to take a slightly longer route to Deadwood in order to go through it. It was worth the stop. Not much to see, but very cute and amusing. It's quite close to Sturgis, famous for its annual motorcycle rally, and we saw lots of bikers.
