Pam's Blog

Deadwood is a town created by the 1876 gold rush. The name came from the dead trees that grew on the canyon walls where Deadwood began. It’s history is full of wild, hardworking and hard drinking gamblers, including Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, both buried here in Mount Moriah Cemetery.

In the 1960’s Deadwood fell on hard times. The citizens of Deadwood formed Deadwood U Bet in 1986 to advocate small stakes gambling. The town has been restored and is home to more than 80 gaming establishments, more than 25 hotels, and over 40 restaurants. There are some Black Hills gold jewelry stores, enough t-shirts and junks shops to send every biker home with a new wardrobe, and too much kitch for a sane person to think about dusting.

We were downtown for the re-enactment of Will Bill Hickok’s death, performed in the middle of Main Street, complete with period clothing, loud gun fire, and gun powder. We also saw the site of Number 10 Saloon, the place Wild Bill was playing cards before his death, and the very chair he sat in while playing those cards.

We found a place called Creekside for dinner that offered outdoor seating in back with an actual creek running below the deck. Out of the steep rock wall, trees were growing, the same kind that I suspect gave this place its name.

We left Aberdeen this morning under a cover of clouds. Just enough in between them to have the sun streaming through like all those religious calendars my Grandma Lindberg used to have. The crops look good, especially the sunflowers, which are brilliant yellow, like a sea of sunshine. Barb says they are such a happy flower. We also passed corn (a LOT of corn), cattle and three herds of buffalo, went through another Indian Reservation, and crossed the Missouri River.

We stopped in Gettysburg, SD, that sports a sign on its western edge, “Where the battle wasn’t”. The road sign on the east bound road out of town includes: Faulkton 41, Watertown 149, Gettysburg, PA 1450. While we were taking photos, Robb and Maudie (making their way to Spearfish) drove by, honking and waving.

As we made our way west the land got more and more hilly. While I was the driver I noticed two things. Traffic is nearly non-existant. I passed one car and never saw another ahead or behind me going west bound. The cars were coming about one per minute in the east bound direction. At one point, the trees completely disappeared. I asked Dad about that and he said this land was in the “rain shadow”. That the rain clouds drop all their rain in the Black Hills and there’s none left to sustain tree growth. Lack of trees really makes a land look barren.

We arrived in Deadwood in the early afternoon. Once we crossed the Missouri, we gained an hour, now on mountain time. After settling in, we tromped around downtown. It’s full of gambling establishments and enough kitch for all of South Dakota … maybe both Dakotas. It’s clean, small, and stuck right on the side of a hill.

We had dinner in Aberdeen with my Aunt Maudie and cousins Robb and Betsy. Being connected, or as Betsy said, “living here all my life”, has its perks. Bets got us a semi-private room at Maveric’s, a steak house in town. The food was good, but the best part was seeing and catching up with them. We haven’t seen each other since our grandmother died in 2000.

Aberdeen is in Brown County and the county fair is this weekend. Betsy went to the concert, The Band Perry, a country band (as she says, in Aberdeen your only music choice is country) and the rest of us went to Maudie’s condo. At 74 she’s the youngest person in the complex, though we didn’t meet any of her neighbors.

With a population of 26,000, we’d describe Aberdeen as a small town with big town aspirations. Betsy says it’s safe and she doesn’t have to worry. This cowtown has a western, country, rural feel to it. Huge implement dealers book end both the east and west edges of town. There are no tall buildings and you can purchase large game lawn ornaments (life sized bear, deer, etc) at two (at least) roadside places. Ken’s sells ammo, guns, bait, and groceries. Gas is $3.58 a gallon.

The bar attached to our hotel, Tapz, has four beer taps at the end of every table, where patrons can serve themselves by the ounce. The screen on the wall records the number of ounces, like a gas pump. Robb says the place attracts the college crowd and the bar puts up photos of the guzzlers who drink the greatest number of ounces. It’s just the kind of place I’d hate to be in … and just seems like a bad idea.

We headed out of Fargo today in the brand new Lucerne. I was the first driver of the day. We headed south on I-29, a flat, straight and wide open highway with a speed limit of 75 mph. There were times on the road when I could count the number of vehicles both ahead and behind me on one hand. No matter how many times I think about it, how many times I revisit this place, the flatness of this land always strikes me. It’s so open, so free, so vulnerable. In some weird way it is such a relief for me. There were scattered rain clouds today in the huge sky visible for miles and miles and miles.

The crops look healthy; corn, sugar beets with the wheat and the hay being cut or already harvested. I love the pitch black of the soil here and the amber color of what’s left of the wheat.

At Exit 1 we stopped at Dakota Magic, a casino in the middle of nowhere. It has its own water tower to service the casino and the hotel. There is literally nothing else there except crops. After making my $10 donation (which took me about 15 minutes) I walked up on the overpass which spans I-29 and could see, to the south the sign announcing entry to South Dakota: “South Dakota, Great Faces, Great Places” and to the north the sign welcoming you to North Dakota.

Once in South Dakota the place the glacier stopped is obvious. Rolling hills and lakes begin to appear and the sky gets smaller. Even so, the hills are not so large. The road is straight, without traffic and the scattered rain clouds can still be spotted for miles. Love that about the prairie. We also crossed the Continental Divide, the line that separates the north from the south. Wish I had spotted the sign earlier so I could have had my photo taken there. Luckily we have the geography specialist with us who schooled us on the three Continental Divides in the USA!