Buffalo, WY to Deadwood, SD scratch that… On to Rapid City

I have gotten rather behind in posting our progress. I still want to make a long post about all the cool stuff we saw in Yellowstone and talk about the cool “Entrance towns” we stayed in. So this is really just a quick update to catch up a bit.
Today we drove from Buffalo, WY to Devils Tower then on to Deadwood, SD. In Buffalo we stayed in a neat house build around 1900, and converted into a small hotel after the original owners husband died. It has a long and interesting history. The room we stayed in was called the Rendezvous room. It has assess to a back stairway, and is in the furthest corner of the large building. It was know to have been used for secret encounters and “meetings” back in the early part of the century. It has beautiful hardwood-floors and some lovely antique furniture. It also came with a homemade breakfast. Best of all it was fairly cheap only about $80 .
After a breath taking drive with the top down the whole way, we reached Devils Tower. It is of course truly amazing. We went into the park and took the 2 mile walk around its base. I had seen it before on a family vacation, but we did not go into the park, it is worth the extra $10 to get a closer look, at least once. It also gets you access to a Prairie Dog field. They are one of my favorite rodents, so expect to see a million REALY close up shots uploaded when I get back. We also saw a very large Bull snake, and Antelopes.
We then passed through our new winner for the lowest population, Aladdin, WY… That number? 16! I know there are lower, but that is the lowest we saw so far on this trip.
We arrived in Deadwood with great excitement, this was a old west town with a lot of History! It’s the place were Wild Bill was shot for crying out loud! So we got the coolest looking historical hotel we could afford and decided to check it out. It turned out it was not for us. If you love to gamble or heck even like it a little, then you would love it. There are slots and tables ALL over. Unfortunately that’s about it. There are a ton of very cool bars though. We did manage to get a picture of the location where Wild Bill was shot, AND a picture of his “death chair”. The hotel though was a lot to be Desired. It was historic all right, it had not been updated sense after they added electricity and plumbing. And as Isabel pointed out the place smelled like it had not been cleaned scene then ether. It even had the old push button light switches, the kind that are surely now a fire hazard. Luckily is was incredibly dark, so we could not see, just how dirty it was. Like most the town, the whole hotel, besides the magnificent entryway, reeked like stale cigaret smoke. A smell that can only build up after a hundred years of not cleaning. After eating, Isabel decided she would see if she could have them give us a refund(it was not to cheap ether). To my surprise they were more then willing to! (Thanks by the way!) So we slipped out of town, and escaped to Rapid City. Making sure to pass through Sturgis in the dark of the night while the bikers slept… 🙂
Off to Rushmore and to see the many cool attractions around here tomorrow!