A One Night Stand with Manitoba:

The International Peace Garden

International Peace Garden entrance. U.S. Customs station is in background at left.

From the 50 State Visitor Guide (North Dakota):

N.D. Century Code 2021 §§12.1-20-25, 12.1-32.15, 12.1-34-06

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 days for initial registration of “residence” (not defined).  3 days for registration of “temporary domicile,” defined as being physically present in state for more than 10 consecutive days, present in state for more than 30 days in a calendar year, or at a location for longer than 10 consecutive days. §12.1-32.15(1)(h), (2).

Visitors: Per N Dak. SOR office, visitors must register if in state 10 consecutive days or 30 days per calendar year.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residency Restriction: “High-risk” offenders may not reside within 500 ft. of a public or private school. §12.1-32-13.

Presence restriction: May not knowingly enter school without permission, subject to exceptions. §12.1-20-25.

Duration & updates:

15 to life. Frequency of updates determined by AG. §12.1-32.15.

Updates: Homeless – every 3 days. §12.1-32.15(2). Others vary.

International Peace Garden: September 2025

If you want to dip your toe into Canada and pretend you have beaten the restrictions on international travel we registered citizens face, there is the International Peace Garden, which straddles the border between North Dakota and Manitoba. 

Driving past the U.S. Customs station on my way to the International Peace Garden entrance. Turn left before you get to the Canadian Customs station which is in the far background in this photo.

From the U.S. side, travel north from Dunseith, ND on U.S. 281 right up to the international border.  The park entrance is actually a few yards (oh, excuse me, meters) on the Canadian side, but it’s purposefully located between the two Customs Stations.  You’ll drive right past the U.S. Customs Station, then turn left into the park entrance just before you get to the Canadian Customs Station.  Pay your $25 entrance fee and TADAAAH! you’re in Canada – no questions asked!

Where to “reside” – International Peace Garden campground, Dunseith, ND

September 2025 was my second visit to the International Peace Garden and this time I decided it would be amusing to stay overnight.  In doing so I realized that this should be one of the destinations or “temporary residences” (as Iowa calls them) I should include when I reported travel at my local sheriff’s office before leaving.

Why?  Because I knew I’d be going back through US Customs upon leaving the Peace Garden (see WARNING below) and I wanted all my paperwork to be in order.  You should want that too, so here is the address you should report to your local sheriff:  10939 US 281, Dunseith, ND.

International Peace Garden map

What is the International Peace Garden?

Now let’s talk about the Peace Garden itself.  The central portion which runs along the U.S. – Canada border comprises a formal garden surrounded by a scenic drive.  There are a conservatory and interpretive center, a sunken garden, sculptures, a 9/11 memorial and a peace chapel.  Two other scenic loop roads branch a few miles (kilometers) from the central drive, one into Canada and one into the U.S. 

Formal garden at the International Peace Garden.  

The linear water feature going into the distance marks the international boundary.

Unfortunately all the developed facilities, including the campground and rental cabins, are on the U.S. side.  These also include a game warden museum, an international music camp and performing arts center, and a Masonic retreat and auditorium.  Mental note:  there’s absolutely no food available at the International Peace Garden, so you’ll have to bring it all with you.

I guess Manitoba doesn’t feel like spending much money on this park because on their side there are only a few picnic areas and hiking trails.  Unfortunately for registered visitors this means you can only camp on the North Dakota side.  Also, the campground is at least a mile (1.5 kilometers) south of the border, so in that sense you don’t get to snuggle up to Canada nearly as closely as you can at the town motel in Portal, ND.  You’ll always be subject to that state’s visitor rules because you’ll spend at least part of every day in North Dakota and as with most states you must assume that any partial day will count as a full day towards your stay there.

Very nice picnic area in Manitoba

North Dakota’s visitor rules are about average among U.S. states and not too tough to live with.  You get ten consecutive days (including partial days) or 30 days per calendar year, which in this very special situation means that even though park rules allow you to stay at the campground up to two weeks you really can’t stay more than nine days (including getting yourself into and out of North Dakota) because the tenth day would trigger an obligation to register in this state and you don’t want to do that.

On the other hand, you can be in Manitoba as much as you like while inside the Peace Garden.  You could go have a picnic at 2:00 AM if you wanted.  I didn’t do that, but I did go for a spin around the loop road at 10:00 just to illustrate the concept.  Unfortunately it was unseasonable cold for early September that night – low 40’s! – so I hardly got out of my car.

Screenshot of my GPS map showing that my car (arrow icon) was located at least a mile within Manitoba while parked at the picnic area shown above.

One last comment about the campground – it was full on that chilly mid-week off-season night.  So make your reservations ahead of time.

In theory, if you were able to hike over into Manitoba and “primitive camp” there for two consecutive nights and a full day spent outside of North Dakota, you’d be able to return to your campsite on the ND side and restart the clock to extend your stay.  The trick would be having a permit with a receipt from the park office to document your out-of-state excursion, and therein lies the rub.  If Manitoba had any intention of letting you camp overnight on their side, surely they’d have a campground there for you to use.  So what makes you think they’ll give you a permit to primitive camp along one of their hiking trails?  Nothing.  And without a dated permit you’ve got nothing to prove you were ever out of North Dakota when you emerge from the Peace Garden and go back through U.S. Customs several days later.

At the North American Game Warden Museum

And now to permanently extinguish any lingering fantasy you may be having about whether you could check into the Peace Garden, walk across the border and disappear into Canada to escape America’s registry.  First: Doing so would violate the rules of the game, which state that you can only go where any American citizen is allowed to go without a passport and nobody cares.  You can be sure that somebody would care if you tried to sneak into Manitoba from the International Peace Garden.

There is, actually, a Manitoba provincial park abutting and surrounding the Peace Garden on their side.  Whether there is some kind of electrified fence preventing you from leaving the Peace Garden over there I do not know because I didn’t check and of course I didn’t ask such a nakedly suspicious question. 

International Peace Chapel, also located astride the US-Canadian border - note brick paver feature extending from the door.  That means I was in Manitoba when taking this photo.

But even if there isn’t, what the hell would you do once you got into Canada with no ID and no passport and no nothing else?  Apply for political asylum based on the unconstitutionality of your U.S. registry status?  No. Canada doesn’t discriminate against registered people.  Instead, their policy is to not let ANY convicted felon of any kind into their country.  Once you get caught (which you will) they’ll arrest you and toss you back across the U.S. border where you’ll be immediately arrested and sent to prison.  Is that really how you want to want to spend your vacation?

Having said all that, it is fun to dip your toe into a foreign country at the International Peace Garden.  

WARNING: Expect to be searched on the way back into the US.  Leave all electronic devises in storage in the town of Dunseith or at the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

The first thing I have to admit to you is that on this visit to the Peace Garden I was so incredibly stupid and naïve that I didn’t think ahead of time about the possibility that I would have myself, my car and yes my phone searched on my way back into the US. 

After looking over my paperwork for a worryingly long period of time, the young man at the Customs window directed me to pull my car into the garage door of the vehicle search area (see photo).  From there an older man led me into the building lobby, where I and my cell phone were searched.

I took this photo from within the Peace Garden, just to show you how close the US Customs building is (left background).  See that garage door back there?  That's where they made me pull my car in to get searched.

It’s a good thing everything about me these days is so squeaky clean – I don’t have a data plan or wifi on my phone, and that means I have no games or downloaded apps, so the young man at the customs counter spent most of his time scrolling through my travel photos in folders with names like “2023 Pac NW Tour.”  Even so this took him about 15 minutes.

Once the young man handed my phone back the older man led me back to my car.  After I was safely away from the area I looked my car over and it seemed that the search had been pretty cursory.  I couldn’t find anything that looked like it had been moved – even my bag of souvenirs.  Similarly, it looked like the young man hadn’t screwed around with my phone very much.

However – it’s still a nerve wracking experience to have your phone searched even when you know there’s nothing to find there.  My local police department couldn’t do that without a warrant, but now here I was with no choice in the matter if I felt like getting back into the US.  After having this experience my message to you is clear – leave all electronic devices in storage in the town of Dunseith or the nearby Turtle Mountain Reservation before proceeding to the International Peace Garden!

Dunseith is a small town, but it’s big enough to have a decent sized commercial district along US 281.  On my way out I was too rattled from my experience to stop and look around for a storage spot for next time, but I do think it’s a big enough commercial district to find safe storage someplace – maybe a truck stop or travel center with storage lockers or something.

The Ojiba Nation Turtle Mountain Band Indian Reservation is the next town to the east of Dunseith and also has a significant commercial area, in case you come up short in Dunseith.

If you have any misgivings about being separated from your electronics even for a couple of days, you should also know there’s no cell service at the Peace Garden, so it’s a waste even to have you phone with you unless you can’t live without your games.  If you want to take commemorative photos, bring a cheap camera with a USB connection.  Let them search that.

What we all need to get used to is that your past felony offense, especially given the nature of that offense and your registry status, makes you a suspicious person to the small staff at a sleepy little Customs facility with not much else to do that day.  Expect to be searched, and if it doesn’t happen count yourself lucky.

Here is the notice the nice young man gave me explaining that US Customs has the authority to do all this:

 North Dakota

From the 50 State Visitor Guide :

Hot air balloons rising at dawn above Medora, ND on the weekend after Labor Day

N.D. Century Code 2021 §§12.1-20-25, 12.1-32.15, 12.1-34-06

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 days for initial registration of “residence” (not defined).  3 days for registration of “temporary domicile,” defined as being physically present in state for more than 10 consecutive days, present in state for more than 30 days in a calendar year, or at a location for longer than 10 consecutive days. §12.1-32.15(1)(h), (2).

Visitors: Per N Dak. SOR office, visitors must register if in state 10 consecutive days or 30 days per calendar year.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residency Restriction: “High-risk” offenders may not reside within 500 ft. of a public or private school. §12.1-32-13.

Presence restriction: May not knowingly enter school without permission, subject to exceptions. §12.1-20-25.

Duration & updates:

15 to life. Frequency of updates determined by AG. §12.1-32.15.

Updates: Homeless – every 3 days. §12.1-32.15(2). Others vary.

Most recent visit: September 2025

North Dakota’s visitor rules are about average and not too tough to live with.  You get ten consecutive days or 30 days per calendar year, which should be enough for most visits – unless you’ve come seeking your fortune as an oil worker, in which case you’re establishing a residence anyway and will need to abide by North Dakota’s relatively mild residency and presence restrictions.

In early September 2025 I was in and out of North Dakota twice. I entered the state on Sunday and left Tuesday morning, so that’s three days (including partial days).  Tuesday night I stayed in Ft. Peck, MT but returned to North Dakota the next afternoon, Wednesday, and stayed that night at the International Peace Garden, which I will report on in my next blog entry.  Thursday night I was at a motel in Fargo, and left the state on Friday morning.

That means I was in North Dakota for six consecutive days from Sunday to Friday – two whole days (Mon & Thurs) and four partial days.  But even with all this in and out, I was still well within the state’s ten day limit.

Roosevelt National Park and Little Missouri National Grassland

Bison herd roaming in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Taken together, Roosevelt National Park and Little Missouri National cover an enormous area of western North Dakota at least as large Yellowstone.  With the exception of the scenic loop roads in the national park, this whole area is roadless and wild shortgrass prairie, punctuated by the badlands of the Little Missouri River Valley.  It’s all public land so it’s been preserved in as close to its original state as you can find anywhere.

This is also where a young Theodore Roosevelt came for solitude and solace after his mother and first wife died in rapid succession.  Later as president he remembered this beautiful place as he was creating our national parks system.  So when you come to see this preserved piece of original prairie and badlands, be sure to thank him.

Prairie Dogs

My previous visit in 2022 was on the weekend after Labor Day.  It turns out that each year at dawn on Sunday of that weekend they have a hot air balloon event in the town of Medora, where the Roosevelt park entrance is.  So you might want to keep that in mind.

So far, so good for North Dakota.  But I have to say – at least in 2022, after Teddy Roosevelt everything was downhill.  The closest town to the North Unit is Watford City which, like Minot which I also passed through, is an oil boom town where a seemingly endless collection of crappy mobile homes, strip commercial garbage, truck stops and equipment maintenance companies have been vomited across the landscape.

I stayed at two state parks while in North Dakota (Fort Stevenson & Graham’s Island) and I have to say they were both very nice, clean and well equipped with hot showers and flush toilets.

International Peace Garden

If you want to dip your toe into Canada and pretend you have beaten the restrictions on international travel we registered citizens face, there is the International Peace Garden, which straddles the border between North Dakota and Manitoba. 

I stopped to see what it was in 2022 but in 2025 I decided, wouldn’t it be cool to camp overnight at the International Peace Garden?  Yes, and I will be reporting on that, and warning you about a few precautions you should take when visiting the International Peace Garden, in my next blog entry.

Smooching with Saskatchewan

A few years ago I visited the International Peace Garden, which is open to Americans but part of it is in Manitoba.  Since then I’ve wondered, are there other places along the US-Canada border where Americans are permitted inside a hermetically sealed little chunk of Canada? 

If you know of any, please let me know.  Meanwhile I have now made it a game to noodle along the Canadian border looking for other special places like that, and in early Sept 2025 I came across one on the Saskatchewan border that turned out to be more interesting than I had imagined.

One thing I want to make clear is that this is just a game.  Nobody is trying to sneak across the border.  I don’t even want to do that and it would violate the rules of the game – which are that it has to be a bona fide place where any American is allowed to be without a passport.  So let’s play the game:

North Dakota – From the 50 State Visitor Guide :

N.D. Century Code 2021 §§12.1-20-25, 12.1-32.15, 12.1-34-06

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 days for initial registration of “residence” (not defined).  3 days for registration of “temporary domicile,” defined as being physically present in state for more than 10 consecutive days, present in state for more than 30 days in a calendar year, or at a location for longer than 10 consecutive days. §12.1-32.15(1)(h), (2).

Visitors: Per N Dak. SOR office, visitors must register if in state 10 consecutive days or 30 days per calendar year.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residency Restriction: “High-risk” offenders may not reside within 500 ft. of a public or private school. §12.1-32-13.

Presence restriction: May not knowingly enter school without permission, subject to exceptions. §12.1-20-25.

Duration & updates:

15 to life. Frequency of updates determined by AG. §12.1-32.15.

Updates: Homeless – every 3 days. §12.1-32.15(2). Others vary.

Portal, ND & North Portal, Saskatchewan Gateway Cities Golf Course

Flirt Rating – B+; possible AA for golfers

Most of the tiny town of Portal is in North Dakota, but a chunk of it has been split off by the international boundary as North Portal, Saskatchewan.  I decided to go see what this was all about.  See GPS map:

No doubt about it – this little town is split in half.  The US Customs complex takes up about two blocks on the US side. Here is a photo of the border from the corner of Clark St. and US 52.  The fenced in area is the Customs complex.  The pickup truck in the far background is coming across the border.

Where to “reside” – Portal Motel

On the south corner of Clark St. and US 52 is an unnamed convenience store with an unnamed motel behind it.  I took the photo above while standing in the convenience store parking lot.  Across US 52 is a small US Duty Free Shop. Here is a photo of the motel and back of the convenience store:

That makes this the closest reportable “temporary residence” to the Canadian border that I have yet found in my travels.  Allow me to suggest that if you’re going to attempt this Canadian golf outing, you should rent a room here for two nights, before and after your outing.  That way you can store up all your electronics before entering Saskatchewan (see WARNING below).

I stopped at the convenience store and struck up a conversation with the clerk.  First I asked about the motel which seemed rather empty (but it was mid-afternoon on a weekday). He said oh yes it’s open and would’ve been happy to check me in for the night. 

Then I said, “I see your town is split in two pieces.  How do y’all deal with that? Does everybody have to carry around their passport all the time?”  He said no passport, but you do need your ID and birth certificate.  If you drive up to the Canadian Customs building and tell them the destination in North Portal you need to get to and you have legit business there and it’s only for a short time, the Canadians will let you go without a passport.  Then you’ll show your ID and birth certificate to US Customs on the way back.  Easy enough.  Except that you and I couldn’t possibly have any legit business in North Portal, Saskatchewan.

Golfing in Saskatchewan

But then he continued – take the golf course, for example (who knew that Portal and North Portal share a municipal golf course?).  The entrance and most of the course is on the Canadian side, but part of the course is in North Dakota.  The only way to get to it is to bring your ID and birth certificate to the Canadian Customs building and get permission to go.  And oh, it’s a good idea to check back at Canadian Customs upon your return, just so they can know everything is on the up & up.

So there you have it.  A specific destination and a legitimate reason to go there.  Except that I’m not a golfer.  Furthermore, I think that if just one person were to drive up to the Canadian Customs building and say, yeah, I wanna go to the golf course, that would seem really weird even if you had your golf equipment laying across the back seat.

On the other hand … I do think that if a couple – or better yet a foursome – were to drive up with a bunch of golf equipment and say, yeah, we like to try new courses and we heard this was a thing so here we are … then it would be just some friends out on a lark and they’d go with it.

So this one’s for you, golfers.

WARNING: Expect to be searched on the way back into the US. Leave all electronic devises in your motel room.

I will soon report on my recent return trip to the International Peace Garden.  For now let me admit that on that visit I was so incredibly naïve that I didn’t even think ahead of time about the possibility that I would have myself, my car and yes my phone searched on my way back into the US. 

It’s a good thing everything about me these days is so squeaky clean – I don’t even have a data plan or wifi on my phone, and that means I have no downloaded apps, so the young man at the Customs counter spent most of his time scrolling through my travel photos in folders with names like “2023 Pac NW Tour.”

However – it’s still a nerve wracking experience to have your phone searched even when you know there’s nothing to find there.  My local police department couldn’t do that without a warrant, but now here I was with no choice in the matter if I felt like getting back into the US.  After having this experience my message to you is clear – leave all electronic devices in your motel room before proceeding to the golf course!  If you want to take commemorative photos, bring a cheap camera with a SIM card.  Let them search that.

What we all need to get used to is that your past felony offense, especially given the nature of that offense, makes you a suspicious person to the small staff at a sleepy little Customs facility with not much else to do that day.  Expect to be searched, and if it doesn’t happen count yourself lucky.

Here is the notice the nice young man gave me explaining that US Customs has the authority to do all this:

 

Snuggling up to the border

Meanwhile there is one other border-flirting experience to be had in Portal, ND.  A public road runs freakishly close to the Canadian border with no fence at all.  See photo:

I took this photo standing beside my car which was stopped on a public road in Portal, ND.  Granted, it’s a small dirt road with only a few homes on the south side, but it is a public road where any American is allowed to be, however briefly and while trying to act as innocuous as possible. 

NOTE: The international border follows the bottom of the ditch.  The sign is on the other side of the ditch, so it’s in Saskatchewan.  On the far side of the road in Saskatchewan is the North Portal Duty Free Shop.  NOTE blue directional sign with golfer icon and arrow.  How nice of them to tell you how to get to the golf course.

In fact, if you’re feeling brave, when you come back from golfing and check back at the Canadian Customs building just to be civil, you could ask if they mind if you check out the duty free shop before going back through US Customs.  If they know you’re not a problem they’ll probably say go ahead.

Now let’s look at the GPS map again:

The arrow icon shows my car’s location.  The point of the arrow is dead center on the little dirt road, and clearly a little bit south of the border.  Even for a non-golfer, Portal, ND gets you closer to the border without being able to touch it than anywhere else.  Add the motel across the street from the Customs complex and this little town easily earns its B+ flirt rating.

But if you and your golfing buddies have a taste for adventure, you could spend a day in Saskatchewan.  AA rating.

South Dakota

Black Hills National Forest

From the 50 State Visitor Guide:

S.D.C.L. 2021 §§ 22-24B-1 through 22-24B-36

AWA Compliant

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

3 business days for initial registration and updates, §22-24B-2; however, state law includes Saturday as a business day. §37-24-1(2).

Per the S. Dak. SOR office, there is “wiggle room” in the 3 business day registration requirement for short term visitors, especially if you are passing thru on a road trip and not staying in one location for more than a few days. If your stay in any one place will exceed the 3 day requirement, visitors should “check in” at local police or sheriff dept. and provide info about intended length of stay.  Supposedly, if not more than 5-6 days you will not be required to register. “Check out” upon departure.

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

Residency restriction: “No person who is required to register … may establish a residence within” 500 ft. from school, park, public playground, or public pool.

§22-24B-23. “Residence” defined as the address a person lists for purposes of the sex offender registry.

Presence restriction: “No person who is required to register” may “loiter” within 500 ft. form school, park, public playground, public pool, or library unless registrant committed offense as a minor and was not convicted as an adult. §22-24B-24.  Petitions for exemption possible.

Supposedly, short term visitors who check in & check out according to the procedure described above (Registration Triggers & Deadlines) would not be “required to register” & thus not subject to these restrictions during their visit.

Duration & updates:

10 years to life; Petition to remove – 5 years.

Updates every 6 mo. §22-24B-7.

Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center

Playing it loosy-goosy in South Dakota

The litany of South Dakota’s residence and presence restrictions described above is long, but upon closer inspection you’ll notice that they only apply to a “person who is required to register.”  If you’re a short term visitor and avoid triggering an obligation to register, you’re off the hook.

South Dakota is one of a handful of states that, by policy, have decided to play loosy-goosy with a statutory very short (in South Dakota’s case three business days) visitor registration requirement by saying that visiting registrants have a “duty to check in” but then seemingly turn a blind eye to it when they don’t.

You may be wondering why the South Dakota state SOR office would want to pursue such a policy.  Answer: Although South Dakota has very short visitor registration requirement, it also has a standardized procedure available to remove you from its registry after departure. 

What this means for a local sheriff’s department bureaucrat is that any time a visitor is forced to register, they have to do all the work of adding that person to their registry and posting it on their website. Then as soon as that person leaves the state they have to do all the work of removing that person from their registry and their website.  That’s double the work for somebody they really couldn’t care less about. Thus is born the separate, low effort, loosy-goosy “duty to check in” policy.

Why do I describe this policy as loosy-goosy?  While I was updating all my state by state research in August 2022, the nice lady at the South Dakota SOR office came right out and said, “We have hundreds of sex offenders coming to the Sturgis Bike Rally every year.  They typically stay more than three days but less than a week.  Why would we want to register all these people and then have to remove them a few days later?”

[As an aside, I was amused by how the SOR lady’s description of the Sturgis Bike Rally made it sound like an annual sex offenders’ reunion.  Hey, maybe NARSOL should hold next year’s national conference in Sturgis during the rally and make it official?]

She then said what I have posted on my South Dakota chart:  There is “wiggle room” in the three business day registration requirement for short term visitors, especially if you are passing thru on a road trip and not staying in one location for more than a few days. If your stay in any one place will exceed the three business day requirement, visitors should “check in” at local police or sheriff dept. and provide info about intended length of stay. And remember, it’s business days, although SD counts Saturday as a business day.

The SOR lady stressed that all they are asking is that visiting registrants staying more than three days come in from the August heat and check in at the local sheriff’s department, then check out when you leave.  No harm, no foul.

Since then the more I think about what the nice SOR lady said, the more I keep saying - - Wait a minute!  I don’t know anything about bikers or biker culture, but it’s just really hard for me to imagine that hundreds of out of state registrant bikers are even going to have the slightest idea they are supposed to do that!  Not to mention how many of them may have properly reported their out of state travel before leaving their home states.

What I am much more sure of is that all that is the last thing on anybody’s minds when they head off for the Sturgis Bike Rally.

And there is the dilemma for the South Dakota Sheriffs Association.  Should we or should we not send a bunch of cops into the Sturgis Bike Rally to round up sex offenders?  How would that look?  Not good.  Thus is born the loosy-goosy “check-in” policy that gets completely ignored in practice.

But suppose you aren’t a biker at the Sturgis Bike Rally?  As I said above, the SOR office claim is that if you’re passing through on a road trip and not staying in any one place for more than three days they don’t care.  So be guided by that.

Badlands National Park

Most recent visit – August 2025

In late August 2025 I was in fact passing through South Dakota on a road trip and not staying in any one place for more than three days.  At first I planned to be in SD four days (including partial days) just to demonstrate how the system works, but commitments at home made me cut the whole trip back and that included cutting a day off of South Dakota.  Even so, I was in the Black Hills on Memorial Day weekend, so that Sunday and Monday would not have counted.

I entered South Dakota on I-90 from Minnesota on Friday morning.  My goal for Day 1 was a reserved motel room in Kadoka, but I stopped to see the Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center and Dignity statue in Chamberlain (see Lakota Nations blog entry) on the way. 

Black Hills

Days 2 and 3 were devoted to sightseeing in the Black Hills, but because it was Labor Day weekend, Sunday did not count towards SD’s visitor limit – and Labor Day wouldn’t have either if I had stuck to my original plan.  Business Day #3 would have been Tuesday, and I would only have had to decide how loosy-goosy to play on Wednesday, the 6th actual day in South Dakota.

Avoid Wall Drug like the plague – South Dakota’s version of Pedro’s South of the Border.

Places to go in the Black Hills:

Badlands National Park – Just remember, it’s going to take up most of a day (photo above).

Mammoth Site – Best display of mammoths, sloths and saber tooth tigers anywhere.

Custer State Park – Has the biggest Buffalo herd in the region and spectacular scenery.

Wind Cave – Great cave tour.  Has 90% of the world’s boxwork.  Also a Lakota sacred site – See Lakota Nations blog entry.

Jewel Cave – I took the cheesy tour that involves almost all walking, but you can take the  90 minute tour that involves 745 steps (!), half up and half down.

Scenic drives in Custer SP and Black Hills National Forest (see photo at top)

Reptile Gardens – Of the roadside attractions, it’s the best.

1880 Train Ride in Hill City – There’s also a train museum next door.

The Town of Deadwood – It’s great and has all the tacky tourist crap you can ask for.  But all those historic buildings are early 20th Century, not cowboy era.

Crazy Horse is a Must See – See Lakota Nations blog entry.

Places to avoid in the Black Hills:

DO NOT go to Mount Rushmore – Anyone who has any respect for the native people of this region should refuse to visit Mount Rushmore or the nearby Borglum Rushmore Museum.  See Lakota Nations blog entry.

Avoid anything Custer-related – As the most evil villain in the history of the West, you should shun anything Custer-related. See Lakota Nations blog entry.