I'm comin' home!! (Custer, Deadwood, Hill City: 2011, how much, casinos)

[Txchief]

Well, albeit only briefly, but we've found ourselves in the fortunate position of being able to take a few days and ride the bike up to the Black Hills! Gonna hit Iron Mountain road(among others), Hill City(Alpine Inn), Rapid(Firehouse Brewing), my great-great grandfather's original cabin near Deerfield and do some fishing, then to top it all off, we're headed to Deadwood for some blackjack action. Can't wait!! We'll be up there around the 6th-8th of July. Woo Hoo!

Oh, if there's any preference to the casinos and packages that we should get, please let me know. I promised my wife that we'd stop in Deadwood the last time, but were short on time, so we had to pass. I'd like to make sure she enjoys herself this time around.

[Jammie]

That sounds wonderful and you sound pretty excited about it. Were you originally from up here or was it your ancestors?

Enjoy your visit and this goes without saying, "TRIP REPORT"!!!!

[MJ1986]

Originally Posted by Txchief

Well, albeit only briefly, but we've found ourselves in the fortunate position of being able to take a few days and ride the bike up to the Black Hills! Gonna hit Iron Mountain road(among others), Hill City(Alpine Inn), Rapid(Firehouse Brewing), my great-great grandfather's original cabin near Deerfield and do some fishing, then to top it all off, we're headed to Deadwood for some blackjack action. Can't wait!! We'll be up there around the 6th-8th of July. Woo Hoo!

Oh, if there's any preference to the casinos and packages that we should get, please let me know. I promised my wife that we'd stop in Deadwood the last time, but were short on time, so we had to pass. I'd like to make sure she enjoys herself this time around.

Awesome! Hope everything goes well, and have fun in the Black Hills!

[DannyBanany]

Great to hear! I hope you have a great time! I don't gamble so I can't really recommend any casinos but I hear that the Silverado is Deadwood's hotspot so go there! They have a great buffet too. If you want to class it up a little, eat at Jake's in Deadwood. You can't dress casually so drab up!

[dallard]

I work for the brand new Deadwood Frontier Club. It's clean doesn't smell of smoke the steaks are the best in the hills (truly) I run the madame Ms boutique it is really nice. You will find it across from the Gold dust on main street. We also have black jack on the weekends. Stop up to say hi.

[Txchief]

Originally Posted by Jammie

That sounds wonderful and you sound pretty excited about it. Were you originally from up here or was it your ancestors?

Enjoy your visit and this goes without saying, "TRIP REPORT"!!!!

I was born in Rapid and my ancestors were all over the Hills dating back to the 1870s. I have lots of good stories about their contributions to the early days(Deadwood, the Pony Express, Deerfield, Hill City, Custer State Park, etc.)

It goes without saying that I want to move back at some point, but it will probably be a few more years before I can seriously consider it, so for now, I'll just have to enjoy the few days I have every few years.

I'll do a trip report with pics.....

[Txchief]

Originally Posted by DannyBanany

Great to hear! I hope you have a great time! I don't gamble so I can't really recommend any casinos but I hear that the Silverado is Deadwood's hotspot so go there! They have a great buffet too. If you want to class it up a little, eat at Jake's in Deadwood. You can't dress casually so drab up!

Thanks for the tip! Not sure if we can do Jake's as we'll be on the motorcycle, so space is a premium which means that we won't be taking the good duds on this trip.

[Txchief]

Originally Posted by dallard

I work for the brand new Deadwood Frontier Club. It's clean doesn't smell of smoke the steaks are the best in the hills (truly) I run the madame Ms boutique it is really nice. You will find it across from the Gold dust on main street. We also have black jack on the weekends. Stop up to say hi.

We'll definitely stop by! Thanks!

[debey]

Travel safe & enjoy the trip!

[Txchief]

Ok, I finally have some time for a trip report!

We made our way up through Chadron(ran into an afternoon storm, so we stopped). Witnessed a very impressive supercell there, but not much came of it at our location. The next morning, we went to Custer for some rhubarb pie at the Purple Pie House(a must for me), then shopped the downtown area for a bit. We then went to Hill City and had lunch at the Hill City Cafe and then made our way up to Deadwood. I was really amazed at how green the Black Hills looked and the weather was perfect! I can't tell you how much better it was than this heat we have in TX. We stayed in Deadwood to do some gambling and spend more time there as promised to my wife. We sampled all of the casinos, but liked Cadillac Jack's the best. That's probably because we came out ahead there versus the other places. We stopped in at the Frontier Club to introduce ourselves to Dallard, but she had gone home for the evening. We played a little Blackjack there before dinner and the guys were great! We were treated very well there and really liked our visit. We shared a Prime Rib dinner downstairs at the Miner's Den and I really enjoyed that as well. We did a lot of riding out in the Hills(Iron Mountain Road, Needles, etc.) and even stopped in at Sylan Lake to do some fishing. I used to go there as a boy quite often, so that was really enjoyable. Went to Keystone for some ice cream and a buffalo steak as well. I also stocked up on the chokecherry taffy too! My wife is fully convinced now that we should be living there, at least during the summers, so we're making long term plans to get back up there on a regular basis. Woo Hoo!! Met some great people, they were really friendly.

We then went into Rapid to Canyon Lake Park and had lunch at the Firehouse Brewery. We then took a ride up to Skyline Drive. I was kind of embarrassed that I didn't remember how to get up there, but found it pretty easily thanks to my GPS on the bike. One thing that I remember from my youth was that there were more dinosaurs up there than the one that is there now?
We then went to Rockerville to find the Hippie Hole, but no luck. We didn't get to explore too much as there were some storms coming in, so we just went up to Horse Thief lake to wait out the storms until we could return to Deadwood.

It was a great trip and I'll post some pics as soon as I download them from the camera. It was hard leaving as I so enjoy the Black Hills, but as usual, it was an outstanding trip! Can't wait to get back!