Sturgis, Deadwood, and Lead South Dakota. 2026

 After we left Thermopolis, Wyoming, we continued to experience unbelievably wide, open spaces.  Frequently, we were the only vehicle on the road for miles.  We eventually left the rolling plains and began to climb up into the Black Hills.

As we climbed higher into the hills, we began to encounter the remnants of last winter's snowfall. The roads were clear and dry, but it was windy and cold. I don't think this northern country is a place I'd want to be in the winter.

Then it was back down toward the high plains.

Suzie finally got an action shot of the antelope.

After arriving at our campground for the night, we then took a day trip to Sturgis and Deadwood, South Dakota.  Sturgis is famous for its annual motorcycle rally, which is held in August.

It May, the town seems kind of quiet and tame.

When we were in Sturgis and Deadwood in 2009, when the motorcycle rally was in full swing, it wasn't quite so quiet.

Or tame.

It did not take long to check out Sturgis on this trip, and then we proceeded on to Deadwood.  If you have ever watched the HBO TV series call Deadwood, this is the town where that happened.

Many of the events depicted in the HBO series, actually happened here, and the saloons, hotels and stores are still here and open.

I mentioned that there were quite a few motorcycles here when we visited in August 2009.

This is just one parking lot. There were several large parking lots like this that took the overflow from all of the motorcycles that lined both sides of Main Street.

The next day, we drove to the town of Lead, (pronounced Leed), which is just up the hill from Deadwood, where we met with friends who moved here from Northern California several years ago. They bought an old fixer-upper house that they are remodeling and repairing.

They have already done a huge amount of work and the house was very cozy.  It wasn't that cozy because they still go back to California in the winter time to visit with friends and family and avoid the harsh winters.

They took us to an old gold mine that the town was built around.  It is called the Homestake mine. Here is a link to a short video that describes the establishment of the mine and the town.

Link to video about the HomeStake Mine (after watching the video by clicking on the blue numbers, hit the back button to get back to the Blog) 

 3:21  

Eventually, gold mining was ended at the Homestake mine, but miles and miles of deep tunnels were left along with a huge open cut.  The open cut is over 1500 feet deep.

This is a model showing where all of the mine shafts are located in the hillside behind the open cut.  It is very difficult to see exactly where all of the mind shafts are, but you will get the idea that this was a huge underground operation.

This next diagram depicts the basic layout of the shafts and drifts of the mine and reminds us that it is 8000 feet deep.

In order to get down into the mine, large elevator cars were raised and lowered, carrying miners, mining cars and supplies into the mine. This is one of the original mining cars.

As you stand inside the main car and look up, you can see a video of what it would look like coming up from 8000 feet in this mine shaft.  You would also remember that 60 people or 10,000 pounds of cargo could ride in this car. Since I have extreme claustrophobia, I wouldn't be happy riding in this car with two people down 8000 feet.

After the gold mining operation was abandoned, scientists discovered that the deep mine shafts could be used for advanced physics experiments.  

The scientist figured out how to build a huge tank at the 4600 foot level of the mine in order to help discover neutrinos. This is a section of the tank. The sections were actually small enough to fit into the elevator car.  Once at the 4600 foot level, the sections were welded together, forming a very large tank.

 

 This is a description of that experiment.

 

 

Now, the experiments continue, and here's a short video. That explains what they're doing now and shows you what it's like inside the tunnel.  (after watching the video by clicking on the blue "Watch", hit the back button to get back to the Blog) 

watch

 

That's enough for this chapter of the blog.  We hope you are enjoying them, and soon, we will begin preparing the next chapter.  Try and get out there and explore some of this amazing country.

 

Tom and Suzie

Lander, Wyoming to Thermopolis, Wyoming, 2026

 After visiting the National Military Vehicle Museum, it was time to continue our trip.  We left Lander, Wyoming, and continued to experience wide open spaces.

We were trying to stay off of interstate highways and stick to two-lane blacktop roads. We would frequently see small herds of antelope along the side of the road.  They blend in with the countryside so much that Suzie has yet to get a picture of them before we are past.

As we continued toward our next night's stop in Thermopolis, Wyoming, we came to the town of Shoshoni, Wyoming, which is located on the Wind River.  This river flows out of the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is one of the reservations that is home to the Shoshone Indian tribe.

The town of Shoshoni is located on the south end of the Boysen Reservoir, which dams up the Wind River, creating a very large lake called Boysen Reservoir.  Water flowing out of the reservoir becomes the Bighorn river.

Boysen Reservoir pictures from the internet.

As we continued past Boysen Reservoir, the road followed the Bighorn River.  The problem with building a road there is that the steep hillsides running down to the river did not leave any room for a road bed in several places.  Because of that, they had to make some amazing tunnels through the solid rock.

The train tracks followed the river on the opposite side of the river from the roadway and here you can see the train tunnel as well as the car tunnel.

There was very little traffic on this highway, and we were glad of that as we went through these tunnels with our monster motorhome. We were glad that we did not pass any semi trucks going in the opposite direction.

It was amazing as we followed the river to see how the terrain and vegetation changed as we moved from mountains into the high plains.

We followed the Bighorn river until we arrived at our overnight stop at Thermopolis, Wyoming. The word Thermopolis in Greek means Hot Springs.  The sign coming into town announced that Thermopolis had the largest hot springs in the world.  We found out that this isn't actually the largest acreage of hot springs in the world, but this hot spring produces more hot water than any other hot spring in the world.

In 1896, the state of Wyoming purchased the land where the town of Thermopolis was built from Northern Arapahoe and Eastern Shoshone Indian tribes.  Those tribes considered the Hot Springs to be sacred and a requirement of the treaty with the state of Wyoming was that the springs would always be available to the tribes.  The state decided that the land would always be free to everyone and a beautiful park has been created.

The state even built a very nice bath house. That bath house is an indoor hot spring pool as well as an outdoor pool.  Use of the facilities is free, but there is a restriction that you can only soak in the water for 20 minutes.  The water is 104° and we found that 20 minutes was plenty.

There were quite a few people that used both the indoor and outdoor pools and we tried both.

The state park also has a very nice loop road and this road took us around the rolling hills of the park where we were able to see several buffalo.

Also in the park, we found several steam vents.  These were structures that were built in order to vent the hot steam at a location where it could not hurt anyone. In order to build the vent, they embedded a pipe over the steam vent and then supported the pipe with a large pile of rocks. Over the last hundred years, the steam that is vented is carrying minerals and as the steam vents to the atmosphere, it condenses and falls back onto the pile of rocks. Over the years, the minerals suspended in the steamy water have completely coated the pile of rocks and all you see now is a giant mineral mound.

There were also very large steam beds that were allowed to just vent over the years. They also had extensive mineral buildup.

They had a very nice boardwalk, that traversed the top of the mineral buildup from the Hot Springs. This pathway lead to a suspension bridge over the Bighorn River.

The sign they put up on the mountain, says worlds largest mineral Hot Springs.

This picture was taken as we were walking on the boardwalk past some of the hot mineral pools.  Various colors are caused by different colonies of algae that grow in the hot water.

The different colors represented here is where the water temperature is conducive to that particular form of algae.

It was fun walking across the suspension bridge, but it was very wiggly.

The next day, we continued our trek towards South Dakota. As we entered the Black Hills, the scenery was beautiful and we couldn't wait to see what wonders our next stop held for us.

We hope you are enjoying our trip as much as we are and we hope you have an opportunity to get out and explore our amazing country.

See you next time,

Tom and Suzie