May 27, 2022
Our day started with lunch with Belinda and Kathy at the Alpine Inn. The lunch menu is fabulous. The food was excellent. The Alpine Inn is one of our favorite places to eat. From there we went to the South Dakota Railroad Museum. It was very small but very cool stuff inside. The cool thing is that there was a caboose inside and you could go aboard and watch a movie about people who worked on the railroad and what the caboose meant.
We left the museum and we had reservations for the 1880 Train ride. It is a 10 mile ride through the Black Hills Forest with some interesting sites along the way. You ride in an old passenger car. Pretty interesting. The locomotive is a diesel/steam engine. I think the diesel fumes got to Nancy. One of the interesting facts on the trip is we passed the old miners camp and mine entrance. Tin was mined in the area. The railroad played an important part of that business. We also passed the back side of Mount Rushmore but could not see the front of it. There were still some telegraph poles standing. A piece of history. Of course there is always wildlife. Shortly after we left Hill City station there was a platform that the town erected to relocate the osprey nest. Apparently there are eggs in there. Of course we spotted some deer. Another point of interest is being able to see Black Elk Peak. The highest point in the Midwest at 7,244 feet. Parts of the ride take you within a foot or so of the rocks or trees.
The train ride goes to Keystone and back. We got back to Hill City about 4:45PM and we were in the mood for some ice cream. We searched in Hill City but came up short. So we went back to Custer to the Purple Pie Place. We found the prices were high and the ice cream was not that great. It definitely was not home made as we had thought. Oh well, now we know. Thus ended another off day.
