Continuing our tales from the USA...

Not far from Rapid City is Custer State Park which is home to a famous herd of 1500 free roaming Bison. Seeing the Bison roaming free on the plains with their baby Bison is a spectacular sight which we will never forget.

Leaving Custer we continued our journey to Deadwood which is essentially a gambling town with slot machines and casinos but still remains a Wild West appeal as locals dress up as old Westerners and chat to the tourists. Wild Bill Hickok was shot in a local bar on the 2nd August 1876 while playing cards when a Jack McCall seeking to avenge the death of his brother shot Hickok. At the time of his death Hickok was holding a pair of black aces and a pair of eights and this hand became known as “A Deadman’s Hand.” There is a regular re-enactment of this shooting for the tourists’ benefit.

Moving onwards our journey takes us through Sturgis which is home to the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame. During the first week of August it throngs with the sound of thousands of motorcycles and upwards of 500,000 people are said to attend this rally.

En-route after leaving South Dakota and into Wyoming we stumbled across the Colby Site. Colby houses the largest known cache of Mammoths and you can view the ongoing excavation which is taking place. We would definitely recommend a visit as we were very impressed.

The final part of our journey takes us to Cody, Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole and continues in the next issue...