Wednesday, June 1 South Dakota to Montana

We had the package breakfast at Wrangler: eggs, meat, toast, hash browns.  We packed our stuff and left the charming Mile Hi motel.

It was time to fill our miserly Prius with gas.  In most stations in South Dakota (and some other states), Plus gas is cheaper than regular.  This is due to heavy ethanol subsidies.  The ethanol supposedly reduces gas mileage.  Ours is definitely less, but we attributed that to lots of high speed driving.

We drove through another arm of Custer State Park.  After we passed through another tunnel, we began a series of steep switchbacks.  For the next half hour, things were mostly downhill.  This resulted in lots of 100+ miles per gallon bars on the car’s readout.

Our tourist stop for today is the Black Hills Mining Museum in Lead (pronounced leed) South Dakota.  This museum has a lot of exhibits mainly focused on gold mining in the area.  The nearby Homestake Mine was the largest gold mine in the Americas, but ceased operation in 2002.  Its tunnels are still the deepest mine tunnels anywhere – over 8000 ft deep.  The US Department of Energy is using one of the deep tunnels as a place to trap nutrinos – particles similar to electrons, but with no charge. 

The exhibits were very good, but the special thing about the museum is the tour of a simulated mine below the museum building.  The tour showed how mining operations evolved over the years, using mannequins with real artifacts.  It showed everything from drilling techniques to blast hole arrangements to hauling operations to signals for the “man cages” used to raise and lower the miners.  They even had the equivalent of a porta-potty. 

Old miner's gear vs modern gear                                                              pottty

We asked the folks in the museum about a place for lunch.  The guy at the desk recommended the Stampmill – just a block away.  When we got there, it was closed and for sale.  Across the street was Spankies Cafe and we decided to try it.  They were just into their second week of business and apparently only had 2 things on their menu – hamburgers and chili.  Our server (Jim thought possibly male, Ardith thought female) emphasized the hamburgers were freshly made, so that is what we ordered.  They were quite good.  The server and the place were quite charming.  We shared a slice of peach pie that was just made that morning.  Yummm!

Another block downhill was the open pit portion of the Homestake Mine.  

There were several interesting old buildings in Lead.  Jim was intrigued with an old Coca Cola mural on the side of a building adjacent to an alley.

Ardith drove out of Lead.  After a few dozen miles, Jim closed his eyes.  When he awoke, he realized that he had slept through Wyoming!  (It was only about 15 miles).  We had chosen to take US 212 instead of I-90.  It cut off about 50 miles.  The road was quite good and uncrowded and we drove about 75-80 mph.  About 60 miles into Montana, we stopped at the welcome rest stop.  The guy there said that there was a big mud slide that blocked 212 and we would need to detour up to I-94, adding about 60 miles to our trip.  To console ourselves, we took an ice cream break at a spot that also sold a lot of countrified knick-knacks.  

The detour took us through some beautiful country and we were making very good time when all of a sudden five lights on the instrument panel lit up.  It looked like an emergency Christmas tree!  We were very lucky to be right next to a rest stop so we pulled in, shut off the car and waited for a while to see if the emergency lights would come on again.  They did so we called AAA and waited about 30 minutes for a very friendly tow truck owner.  We were 70 miles outside of Billings, Montana.  He towed us into the city, dropped the car off at the auto shop, and drove us to a nearby motel.  We had a delightful chat with him on the ride into Billings.  He pointed out many flooded areas, the result of some very heavy rains.  Farmers have fields too wet for planting, and they are concerned about what will happen when winter snow starts to melt and fill the same rivers.

After all the time and energy it took with our car problems, we had no time or desire for dinner.