Sunday 29 May

Up reasonably early and had a very nice breakfast in the motel reception - peaches, followed by toast for Anne and scrambled egg for Les. Anne couldn’t have the egg as it had bacon in it. Didn’t bother with the waffles or the biscuits and gravy that were on offer.

Set off about 9am - weather drizzly and cold (44F). Headed north up the 85. Almost no traffic. More classic grassland like yesterday. We were running parallel to the route of the Cheyenne/Deadwood stage. Turned east onto the 18 towards Edgemont. Crossed over the border into South Dakota.

Stopped at Edgemont for coffee. Another very depressed small town. The coffee shop which was at the petrol station and was also a small store, was stocking up on Sturgis t-shirts for the annual motorcycle rally. This must be a small highlight for them. We were amazed by a man in the cafe who was having ‘breakfast’. This consisted of a plate of fried eggs (4?) and another plate of pancakes, bacon and maple syrup. He ate both plates simultaneously!

We drove through the town and found a small park next to the museum where they had recreated one of the original covered bridges. As far as we can understand there are now none of these left in the State.

Carried on along the 18 and then up the 89 to Pringle and then the 385 to Custer. From Custer we took the 385/16 north to the Crazy Horse Monument, even though the drizzle was hard and the visibility poor. This stretch was interesting as we were definitely amongst the Black Hills. All heavily forested with fast running streams coming down steep gullies.

As we drove along this section we suddenly realised that all the interior lights were on in the car. We pulled over but despite doing everything we could think of, we couldn’t get them to go off. This was a great worry as obviously if we stopped for any length of time we’d end up with a flat battery. When we finally got to Crazy Horse we parked and Les got the manual out. He managed to identify the fuse for the interior lights. There was then a struggle finding out where the fuses were (under the bonnet), opening the bonnet, identifying the fuse and getting it out. To our enormous relief the lights went out whilst everything else on the car still worked properly. By this time Les was already wet and fed up when he realised the zip on his jacket had jammed towards the very top.

We didn’t really expect much at Crazy Horse other than a view of the monument. The view wasn’t brilliant because of the weather but the Centre itself was terrific and we spent several hours there. Our first priority (after the restrooms) was Les’s jacket zip. He just managed to get the jacket off over his head and then free the zip. Next was lunch. We went and got a bowl of soup and ordered a small pizza to share which they said would be 20 mins. We ate the soup and were congratulating ourselves on how we’d turned two potential disasters into small triumphs. At that point the man came up and told us he’d burnt our pizza and did we want to wait 20 mins for another one. We settled for two more bowls of soup.

The Visitor Centre was terrific. There were displays, a theatre where they showed the history of the project, the sculpture’s original house and workshop, etc, etc, etc. After looking round all of these we took the bus tour to go up to the base of the monument with a very good description from the driver of the history, etc. We were able to get out and take some decent pictures that weren’t affected by the weather.

Back at the centre we had (free) coffee and a look round the shops. We went to the information desk to get a free re-entry pass in case tomorrow night’s weather is good enough for the laser light show. Got talking to a guide (Dusty D) who suggested the best driving routes for our next couple of days and highlighted them on maps. In return we gave him bits of advice for his upcoming trip to Australia, and he seemed really pleased.

Back to the car which worked fine without the fuse, and on the fairly short distance to Hill City. This is not an enormous town (in fact the sign says population just under 800), but on the face of it it seems a great deal more prosperous than other places we’ve been through. Lots of motels and various places that looked as though they might be good to eat at.

Checked in and found a very nice large room with two queen beds. It has a swimming pool which was only a few yards from our room so we went down and had a nice refreshing swim. While Anne dried off afterwards and did some ironing Les tried to fix the door locking problem on the car by looking at the fuse for the circuit. He immediately spotted that it had a 10amp fuse instead of the 25amp shown in the handbook. After an enormous struggle he got the fuse out only to find it was okay - obviously the problem is more fundamental but someone has tried to solve it previously by changing the fuse. No progress with the problem and Les got quite wet.

Weather was still horrible so we ate in the motel restaurant. Nice and fairly cheap though Les 'inadvertently' had an extra glass of wine due to a mix up with the waiter whose English was not very good. Pork chops for Les and a fish sandwich for Anne. Saw some full length ponchos for sale so bought them as they were only $4.50 each in the hope that we might be able to stay relatively dry.

Back in the room we downloaded photos, wrote up diary and then listened to podcast of last Friday’s News Quiz.