My husband and I have never gone to the Saint Patrick’s Day events in Deadwood so this year we decided to go. The events took place on Friday March 15 and Saturday March 16. We went on Saturday and wanted to experience the parade, the pub crawl, and the after party at the Franklin Hotel. The first thing we needed to do was book a hotel. If you have ever tried to book a hotel in Deadwood for a special event you will see that they raise their prices quite a bit. For a room during the winter that may cost only $39.00 a night, may now cost over $200.00 on a Friday or Saturday night. If you have a coupon, those may not work either. My husband and I instead ended up staying at the Baymont Inn in Sturgis for around 82.00 a night. Booking through booking.com with a friend gave us a discount of $25.00 more for an even better discount.
Once we arrived in Sturgis we now had to figure out how to get to Deadwood which is 13 miles away. The hotel offers a free shuttle from 5 pm to 2 am, but that does not help those that want to hit the events early and not drive like us. Those events included a parade at noon, the pub crawl from 230 pm to 630 pm, and open container on the streets from noon till 10 pm. There were also a lot more events up in Deadwood to attend, but we were not interested in those.
Once we checked in we started to look for a ride. We tried calling LYFT (which took too long), and a taxi (which was too expensive), so we ended up getting a ride from some strangers we met in the lobby. Their car was small - a nissan I believe, and the 7 of us made a very tight squeeze in the vehicle but we made it. We will forever be grateful for the ride and we found out our heroes owned THE GREEN CHILI SHACK that serves great food in downtown Rapid City. For more information on that go to their facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/greenchilishack/
Once we got to Deadwood the fun started. The parade started around noon.
There were marchers.
And those playing musical instruments.
And those on bikes.
The dog was the main star.
More music.
The parade was short but still fun. The people in the parade threw out lots of beads, candy, and some gambling tokens. I won $5.00 for the Franklin Hotel. There were a lot of interesting costumes and overall people were there to just have fun. Below is a male who I befriended for a picture.
Other subjects having fun.
Got lots of beads in the parade and to hang out with friends.
Subjects roaming the streets playing music.
The pub crawl was next and very interesting. There are several clan names and you get to pick which one you want - you just have to register. You then stay with that clan and walk up and down the street and visit up to 9 bars staying around 30 minutes at each bar. At the end of the pub crawl all the clans go back to the Franklin Hotel. Here they yell and scream and try to beat out the other clans for a grand prize. Supposedly the loudest clan wins the grand prize which is a bar tab for more alcohol. Honestly it was so loud inside the Franklin, I don’t know how they can tell who is the loudest.
The start of the pub crawl. The street was packed.
This was our clan which we followed.
The pub crawl seemed to go back and forth through Deadwood so we got a lot of walking in that night - over 12,000 steps.
Different clan names.
At the end of the pub crawl at the Franklin Hotel. Very crowded and loud.
Overall it was a very fun experience and I’m glad I did it. To me it is something you do once, but not something I need to do again. If I was to go again, I would probably skip the parade and pub crawl, and just go later in the night for the usual fun in Deadwood.