66. Blink. 38.

[Untouchables/Bull Durham/Silverado]

We're in Gillette, Wyoming, where it was snowing when we pulled into the motel. Twenty minutes before it was 66 and the sun was hot. Oh ... and the wind is gusting to 50+ mph.

We spent the previous night in Deadwood, SD. 1300 residents. Nearly as many little casinos. Thousands of tourists. Last night most of them were on our trolley and all of them were crazy drunk. Not kids. People our age. And that was on the way into town.

Breakfast at Kevin Costner's Diamond Lil Sports Bar, as we did last year. Took more pictures of the costumes he has on display. Found a surprisingly fun knick knack shop with the biggest Betty Boop collection we've come across so far.

Laughing toy dogs kicking up their legs and rolling over in the aisles. Toy ferrets endlessly chasing balls. Music playing from all sorts of devices. Lots of neat stuff. Some not of course.

So when we were looking at things on the main counter, there was a little plastic boy standing on it. Mike, having apparently read enough of the directions to be curious about this toy (something about making him sing), was squeezing and poking at it to make it do what it said it would.

I went over to him. Read the directions and how to make it work. Had an idea about what it would do. Pushed down on the shorts of the plastic representation of a three year old.

Yeah ... Mike got wet.

Just where it was most embarrassing for him to be wet.

He yelled. Then laughed, as did the two women behind the counter.

Then on to Moriah Cemetery to once again pay our respect to Wild Bill and Calamity, along with many others in that hilltop resting place. The stories the stones hint at can really make your imagine work overtime.

Following Bill's picture, that's Deadwood from the cemetery overlook.

Just a couple of miles south of Deadwood is Lead ("Leed"), an old gold mining town. Stop at the visitor's center, walk out the backdoor, and this is what you see:

An "open cut" gold mine one half mile wide and 1500 feet deep. There was no way for me to capture it all in one picture, but it certainly is an OMG! sight.

From there we headed west, not by the Google recommended way. Not by any locally recommended or signage lures. Wow! Someone eventually said it was the canyon drive. Nearly straight up both sides. Naturally cut. Falling rocks. Yet another breathtaking place. You'd think we'd had enough of those to inoculate ourselves from further gasps. Well ... guess what. This wasn't the last nor the most stunning.

Then to Gillette as mentioned above. One more point regarding that weather reversal, as we approached Gillette on I-90, two cars had spun off the road on a thin film of ice that had formed from the moisture in the pea soup fog. (Oh ... I hadn't mentioned that either, had I.)

We had an absolutely boffo buffet at the motel's restaurant. Excellent roast beef, shrimp, different shrimp, fish, clams in the shell, and crab legs. Mostly I'm mentioning this because I may finally have figured out how to properly extract meat from the legs. This may help one or two of you, but I'm jotting this down to help me remember the next time -- if and when -- I have crab legs.

After struggling slowly, slowly through the first six or so, I discovered that if I broke the legs between the biggest section and the next one, pulled them apart (removing the ... well, anyway, pulled them apart), then broke the big section in half, all of the meat would stay in one piece and slide right out and into the seasoned garlic butter. YummmEeee!