Friday, July 20
Friday: July 20
Drove only 36 miles
I slept late (8:30am MTN time) awaking to find Tim had been up for hours. (Guess he hadn’t adjusted to MTN time yet.) He had toured the campground with Sprocket, taken a shower, checked his e-mail and gone over to the Campground tent for a pancake breakfast! (See what I miss when I sleep in?)
Our plan for the day was to take a ride on the “1880 Train” and then drive to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial but when we got to the train depot in Hill City, we found the train was sold out for the 10:00am departure. So we bought tickets for the next train at 1:00pm and reversed our plans. What a great day! Rushmore was awesome. We watched a movie in the theatre there at the memorial site that gave all the history about its making and about the artist that created it, Gutzon Borglun. I was sad to learn that after making this his life’s work, he died just 5 years before it was completed.
But the surprise of the day was the “1880 Train”. The engine is a 1928 Baldwin steam engine built to run on bunker oil and then converted to run on used motor oil. The fireman had to throw sand in the firebox when we went uphill to clean out the flue and boy did that old engine belch out some black smoke then!
The train runs between Hill City and Keystone, about an hour’s ride through some beautiful Black Hills forest. We spent a couple of hours in Keystone roaming through the shops and searching for a pizza place that had been recommended to us back in Hill City. The pizza was surprisingly good. Then we boarded the train for the return trip.
Once back at the campground, Tim rustled us up a nice western meal of sautéed garlic and shrimp in white wine sauce over linguini. Yummy even if it wasn’t exactly what the cowboys would have had.
Profile view of George
White Mountain Goat and calf we passed on the drive up to Mt. Rushmore
The young one was so cute!
Mt. Rushmore Memorial
I wasn't prepared for how huge this carving is.
Train depot in Hill City
The "1880 Train" tower
The train curving around a bend
Mule colt lying down with its mother
Leonard waving to the train.
Yes, Leonard is a real man and he lives in this house across from the train tracks. Everytime a train comes by he comes outside and waves to the folks!
View from the train. Do you know what piece of farm equipment this is with the sign on it? It's a manure spreader. Too fitting.
One of a few beaver dams we passed on the train ride
The Baldwin Locomotive
Train belching smoke.
Beautiful vistas of the Black Hills.
Harney Peak - at 7242 feet it is the highest point east of the Rockies all the way to the Swiss Alps.
The grit from the sand put in the firebox to clean the flue on the uphill climbs blew back on the passengers (including me). I felt a little gritty the rest of the day. :-)
The train crossed a paved country road many times. There were no gates or lights, just RR signs and of course the engineer blew the whistle each time we were approaching a crossing.
Another picture (from the return ride) of Harney Peak and the beautiful Black Hills forest.
Are you sick of looking at pictures of Harney Peak yet?
Old caboose on an old spur of the railroad
Private residence - house built on a pile of rocks
Picture of the mule colt nursing taken on the return ride
Wild turkey and little chicks taken on the return ride
7/20/2007 :
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