Black Hills, Deadwood and Badlands

South Dakota has a couple of surprisingly famous landmarks and one excellent national park. First off we drive through the Black Hills along a scenic byway alongside gushing rivers and rugged cliffs. Trees line the top of the canyon and we pass the odd frozen waterfall, yes it's still that cold.

We pop out of the surrounding scenery into the town of Deadwood. This was sensationalised in a recent TV series of which I saw nothing but I do remember it starred the guy who played Lovejoy in the series of the same name in the 80's. Anyway, this town is infamous for Wild Bill Hickok and the gold rush. Cries of 'there's gold in them there hills' and so forth spring to mind.
Wild Bill was the sheriff of the town and an avid gambler, explaining somewhat the cheesy casinos along the small main street. Before his time the land around the South Dakota black hills was Indian owned. The government gave them rights to the land but once gold was found here everything changed. People rushed in from all over the world sparking vain attempts by the government to stop the influx with the military being involved. This lead to fighting between Indians and the new settlers for years. This is pure Wild West with gunfights, Indians, wagon trains, drinking and gambling. You know, the good ole days. Wild Bill ended up getting shot in the back whilst sitting in a casino and is buried in the cemetery just above town. The wooden houses off the main street and dotted along the steep side streets are decent looking but the main street itself is a bit tacky. The streets around it look a lot better though.
This also seems to be a haunt of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, we passed through the village of Sundance just before here, as well as Calamity Jane. Believe it or not Butch Cassidy was a citizen of Salt Lake City, his parents left England due to their Mormon beliefs. And where did they leave behind in England? Preston. Well I never.
We carry on through rolling hills of yellow prairie grasslands to Rapid City. I like the name. We take a stroll round the deserted streets the next morning and realise why no-one's about, it's Easter Sunday and everybody's at church. Classic. For heathens like us this is great. The lack of loudmouth lumps for a few hours is a nice break. Rapid City itself isn't too bad either, brick buildings and bronze statues of former presidents adorn each corner. We turn down a back alley that is full of graffiti, seemingly allowed by the council and renamed 'Art Alley'. Some great stuff and some terrible but at least it brightens up the look of a normally gritty alleyway. It's in stark contrast to the clean streets and general uniformity of the place, good stuff.
An hour out of town is Badlands National Park. For the hour we drive we see nothing but the wide plains of South Dakota rolling off into the horizon. All of a sudden we're in Badlands and the landscape is drastically changed into a vast canyon of epic proportions.
We do a couple of short walks before the hordes arrive from church aswell as taking in some of the great viewpoints. There's an array of landscapes here from quiet rustling prairie to multicoloured hills to natural arches and canyons.
There's also a bit of natural history here in the strange fossils they've found here from animals who lived in the region around 20 million years ago. These animals are said to be related to various animals living today such as the modern day horse and wolves but died out in a series of drought ridden years. Whatever happened, these animals never returned.
This place has a similarity to the bizarre landscapes of Death Valley, but a bit colder, and I like it all the more because of it.
Badlands is a huge and, for today anyway, fairly quiet national park that is definitely worth a visit. Whether you'd ever find yourself in South Dakota I don't know but it does also have one of the world's most famous monuments, which we visit the next day.