Temporary Home Base

 The drive was with our old friend, wind, it was a constant head or crosswind.  The construction season is upon us here, and they're back to playing on the I-90. 

These were mounds of crushed highway concrete. First step in creating these mounds is a tractor with a huge jackhammer. Then a loader with a bucket comes by and separates concrete from rebar. After the separation and stacking is complete, another loader comes by, alongside a miniature rock crusher. The rock crusher does its dirty work, leaving behind these neat "little" piles. It appears that they use it as a base under the new concrete highway. They level it out, then compact it before rebar and new concrete. I-90 will take several years to complete.

These are only a few of the action advertisements for this brewhouse... think they are serious about wanting people to come and try their beers and wines? Last year Carol and I stopped by for lunch and to try a couple of their beers; this year our goal is to try their wines.

WE HAVE MADE IT TO ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE... and we barely beat the rain.

The sky looks good here. We got settled in and things changed.

Above is on side of the trailer, below is the other side of the trailer.

Not too much later:

The next morning we woke up to a great view out the back window.

Apparently this group of deer come by fairly often, are not afraid of humans, letting people come close to them. As you can see they are on the other side of the fence in a different piece of government land.

Friday night we met up with some old friends that live here in South Dakota, and headed to the dirt track races.

Visiting the raceway, one has several options for seating, bring one's own chair, or sit in bleacher seating. People that bring their own chairs are located in the upper rows where the bleacher seating has been removed.

There were several classes of race cars, from modified to sprint. The picture above is one of the sprint car heats. The races started with sunshine, and finished in darkness... for everybody but the racers on the track, they were well lit up. After the races we headed home for the evening, getting home around 10:30pm.

WE ARE DEFINITELY ON THE PRAIRIE. The winds have been pretty steady daily, generally around 12 to 15 mph, blowing in all kinds of weather. One day was the rain, another brought on fog, yet another day would bring winds having people standing in a horizontal position.

There aren't any pictures of people standing horizontally... I wasn't going outside to look for them. Now, with the dreary, comes the good.

After the rainy days came days that were just partially cloudy, with beautiful sunsets.

We took a drive up the road to a town called Keystone, and walked around town. Before we started our walkabout we stopped at the BrGr 61 eatery, soon to open a brewery, and had a good lunch. They are an eclectic kind of place, you're there when you see one of the first riding mowers outside their business entrance.

As one can tell, it is sooooo valuable that it needed to be secured to prevent someone from indiscriminately mowing lawns. The grill serves breakfast and lunch, and we kept it simple, just having burgers. The burgers came to the table naked. Anything the customer would like to add to the burger was at the salad/condiment bar.

That's right, salad and condiments from a boat. To the right, is the utensil dispenser, and napkins are by the soda machine. 

I said this place was eclectic, let me show you... 

On the way to the counter.

To the soda machine.

Shelf lined with phones.

Things that watch customers eat.

Lets continue eclectic, marching to the restrooms after all that soda.

That's right... not restrooms, but "potties". These potties are unique to the sexes. The women get to take care of business while a shark is looking in on them, and men get to feel at home in a large handicap porta pottie.

Off we went after finishing lunch.

 

There are still a lot of the old buildings left on the main street through town. Most of those buildings are now filled with tourist oriented businesses.

The stroll around downtown was short, but never uneventful... especially when there is money to be spent. We made it past all the candy, fudge, and ice cream shops, and spent our money in a t-shirt shop, one for me, one for our oldest son.

After our stroll downtown we took the historic walk just outside downtown. Their museum is in a schoolhouse that was used until the late 1980s.

The Keystone school was built in 1899. The first classes in 1901 had 158 students; by 1988, which had the last classes, they had 8 students. The museum has an area dedicated to Carrie Ingalls Swanzey... from "Little House on the Prairie" fame. The schoolhouse is a three story, with a gymnasium in the basement.

Well I am going to start on the first floor... only because we started on the first floor. The interior of the building didn't change much over its years of operation.

Walking through this door reminded me of my days going to elementary school in Kansas. The school I went to was built in the early 1900s too. The room contained artifacts relating to Keystone's early days. Keystone has had some famous people visit in the past, including a president of the United States, William Howard Taft, our 27th president. President Taft had a friend that lived in the area, and would visit periodically.

Notice the bathtub in the photo. This bathtub came out of the home of his friend, which had been torn down. You ask... what makes the tub unique? Wherever Taft stayed he had a special bathtub installed, this was the case here. Moving through this room into the next, visitors have the opportunity to view family photos, not just of families themselves, but their lives in the early to middle 1900s. Closing the loop on the first floor, we ended in the gift shop/memorial to Carrie room.

Before we started up to the second floor they had an 8th Grade Final Exam posted on the wall.

I am going to trust your integrity in completing each section in the time given. If you have "temporary void of information", move on to the next question... time is of the essence. This test was probably given in the one room schoolhouse talked about later.

Upstairs they have several classrooms setup. When there are school field trips visiting, they have the students dress in the clothes of the time period, sit at the desks, and are taught their lessons.

The classroom has a variety of desks, from its beginning, to its last days. One of the other rooms on the second floor was furnishings from Carrie Ingalls Swanzey's home.

Back down the stairs to the first floor... then down the steep stairs to the basement. Again, a flashback to my younger days in Kansas. The musty smell was just like our basement. This was where they had a Mt. Rushmore exhibit.

How would you like to get to work like this everyday? These guys spent a good amount of their efforts getting to the office like this for the better part of 17 years. Their time was cut short when it was decided that work would have to stop because of problems with the rock, and funding.

We done made the climb back up the stairs, and out the door, to continue our walking tour.

First stop was a one room school house, built circa 1895.

One teacher taught 40 students, all eight grades in this schoolhouse. Class materials consisted of 1 globe, 1 map, and a small chalkboard. The original location was down the hill, a few streets away.

This is a map of the area the walking tour encompasses. The photo is Keystone in the 1940s. Number 1 at the top of the photo is where the Rushmore Memorial is to be.

The numbers on the walking map correspond to the numbers on the map from the 40s. Again, most of the historic buildings have businesses in them; in fact a couple of the buildings can be rented out for vacations. One of the vacation rentals was the second ice house built by James Halley III.

The second ice house was built in the 1930s. By this time James had built a dam across Battle Creek, and when the water froze, he cut the ice and hauled it back via truck to his ice house. In the days before, they had to wait for the lake to freeze, the ice get two feet thick before it was cut, then it was hauled out by horse and sleigh.

A little background on the Halley family, they were one of Keystone's founding families. The Halley's owned the General Store. 

The store was built in the 1890s, and called the Keystone Trading Company. It supplied just about everything a miner, or family needed to live. In 1917 James Halley III. In 1930 James changed the name to Halley's General Store. 

Store in 1930.

Store in 1950. 

In 1952 James Halley IV (Jr.) acquired the store, and operated it until 1980. The store is still operational, but we could not go in, they were in the midst of re-modeling.

Within the walking tour there are two gold mines, "The Holy Terror" , and "Big Thunder". 

The Holy Terror Gold Mines was discovered in 1894, and was a very successful mine. However, in 1896 a fire threatened the mine and lives of three of its miners caught in the Keystone shaft. Thanks to the Keystone community, including school children, the miners were able to get to safety. Story that runs around town as to how the mine got its name had to do with a question posed to the owner. He was asked if he was going to name it after someone he knew... he named it for his ex-wife.

The Big Thunder Gold Mine is accessible via daily tours. Exploration began in 1893, and was originally called the Gold Hill Lode claim. More information is available at:

https://www.bigthundermine.com.

The community was not without religion. The community of church goers first met at the home of Willis Bower. A motion was put before the community for the construction of a church, at a cost of roughly $2,000 dollars, fully furnished. 

The Community Church is still an active church... visitors are welcome to worship. The stain glass windows are not original to the first building. This is not the only building that was build on a hill, a good portion of Keystone was built on the hills.

The walking tour was a nice workout, now it was time to head home... by way of the North Pole. On our way back down the hill we pulled over to visit Christmas Village.

This place sells all kinds of Christmas items, with a tad bit of Halloween and NFL.

For you non-Christmas likers out there, a friend was near to welcome you to the store.

Their NFL section was full of memorabilia from every team, and yes we spent a couple of dollars before driving home. You can take a look at them at:  http://www.blackhillschristmasvillage.com.

We again were afforded the opportunity to sit around and do little... cuz the rain came back for a few days, then the wind acted as a blow dryer to dry it out. In between the wind and rain Carol and I drove to the mall for some mall walking. We achieved our goal, and made it home before a few more sprinkles.

Time to plan for the next local adventure.