deadwood trip observations

After I canceled my july vegas trip I decided to go to deadwood. I can report it was nice and above all "NORMAL".

I went mid week and it was fairly busy, gambling wise there were very few covid effects, i played BJ at 6 ot 7 places, 1 place had the whole shebang going - plexiglass, limited players(4), dealers wearing masks, but most of the rest had little or nothing going on. a couple had the bottle of hand sanitizer thing when you sit down but other than that no masks on players or dealers. 1 place had a packed table, dealing pitch, no glass, nothing at all. i mentioned to the strict place dealer about the others and he said with a wry grin 'I guess they're not participating".

The machine situation was normal as well , no every other machine turned off stuff, just sit and play. In town i would estimate 5-10% of the people were wearing masks and I'm being generous, on a wed night they had a band playing in town(town square thing) and it got a modest crowd as I walked by.

The restaurants were all pretty normal, even the buffets were open, they just had a box of gloves and requested you put a glove on as you walk through and serve yourself..

I did hear that the annual sturgis bike rally is still on and they were expecting the usual 60,000 people or whatever, on the radio they said all employees will be educated to do a lot of wiping, etc. that outta be plenty!

I also went to custer state park, climbed a mt, went to the crazy horse monument, all perfectly normal, beaches open, everything open and normal.

In short, if you're a little depressed at all the negativity out there, the doom and gloom, Deadwood and South Dakota in general is the place to be.

 

Good to hear. I am actually heading there on Sunday for a 3-wheel rally, staying 4-5 nights. Not quite Sturgis, but I'm kind of glad it's not. Been there, done that!! @jack v Did you eat at any interesting or good places?? Were the drinks still free?? How was the gambling??

 

Drinks were still free(normal drinks), I made a little money playing BJ but lost a fair amt on VP, The paytables are not good compared to vegas or other casino's but it is what it is.

I had nothing fancy eating wise, the motel i stayed in had a nice little cafe so i ate there both mornings., I'm not a foody so you wouldn't want advice from me on that.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

One thing i did on the drive home was not take the interstate the whole way, and it was really interesting, I headed straight east from Sturgis, went through Pierre and hooked back up with the interstate south of that. Talk about remote, about 20-30 miles east of sturgis there is nothing out there, you come over a ridge and can see for miles and miles in every direction, no houses, no trees, no cattle, no fences, nothing, maybe 80 miles later you suddenly come upon a river valley which is about the steepest you'll ever see, the road goes straight down and then straight up(very pretty), after that you turn towards Pierre and there's one spot where the sign said no services for 65 miles, and there weren't. i enjoy getting off the interstate for at least some of every return trip.