On this hill Custer and his men fought against the indians but lost and were killed. There is no way to know how authentic the placements are, but one thing that is neat about the monument is they have gravestones placed where Cavalry soldiers fell. This gives the place more emotion. I was expecting to find just a hill, and a hill indistiguishable from nearby hills would have had much less impact.
I have never seen the popular Deadwood TV show, and I admit I didn’t know it was a real town, but Jessie did and she was thrilled it would be on our way home.
Deadwood is a neat old town that was incorporated in 1876 following the discovery of gold in the area. Many of the old buildings still line Main Street and newer buildings are built to fit in, so it really feels like a step back in time.
After visiting the graves we went down to Main Street to have lunch. I asked the parking garage guy for a restaurant recommendation and he suggested we go to the Midnight Star, owned by Kevin Costner. The Kevin Costner thing kind of went right by me until we got into the restaurant. The walls are covered with photos from his films as well as cases housing customes worn in the films. There were customes from The Untouchables, Robin Hood, Dances with Wolves, and many many more. We joked that there probably wasn’t a display for Waterworld, but our waiter told us that there was. But we didn’t seek it out.
Lunch was good and we hit the road. Deadwood was a neat old town, some day we’ll have to come back and tour around some more.
Leaving the KOA we were stopped by a long line of tractors traveling on the highway.
The woman who stopped us at the intersection told me they were from Iowa and were going to visit Hill City then were going to Mt. Rushmore. There were 42 tractors, all driven by smiling waving grandpas, they were so cute!
