Spearfish, South Dakota

June 12, 2022

On a sunny Wednesday morning, we continued our traveling northward in the Black Hills. We drove through the infamous yet scenic town of Deadwood along the way. We didn't stop, but perhaps some other time it would be an interesting town to explore. It definitely is a place with a checkered past, and remnants of this past can be found in the many casinos and gaming locations seemingly around every corner.

Perhaps we'll come back some day to explore more of Deadwood.

Our arrival at Spearfish City Campground was uneventful except for deciding where to park.  We had reserved a less expensive dry camping site (no hookups), but there were no assigned sites. Basically, you could park on any lawn that wasn't a designated numbered site.  After a couple of loops around the campground, we found a spot along the river that we could squeeze into without too much trouble. Rick wasn't too keen on parking on the soft-ish grass, and the camper wheels kind of sank in a bit, but it seemed ok. (We'll see how it goes pulling out next week!) It was a nice bonus to have Spearfish Creek in our backyard, though!

Interestingly - Google does not show the river continuing where it should be and going under the pedestrian bridge (to the left of our campsite - the pin is where we are along the river).

We had arrived fairly early on Wednesday so we would be assured of getting a reasonable site (early was not needed - the campground was not full) so we had time to do laundry in town.  The laundromat was pleasant but almost twice the cost of the last one in Aurora, Nebraska. We didn't realize there was such a variation in pricing!

Thursday started with shopping, and then a nice saunter around the campground and the fish hatchery right next door to the campground.  It is mostly a demonstration site and tourist attraction at this point, so it had a lot of historic exhibits as well as a restoration of a train car used to transport live fish to streams and lakes back in the 1800's and into the 20th century.

Not surprisingly, they do not want you to fish in the hatchery ponds.

They converted the original hatchery building and residence into a nice museum.

Interesting bit of trivia: Spearfish holds the world record for largest temperature drop in the shortest amount of time--49 degrees in 2 minutes!

Volunteers did a good job restoring an original railroad fish car. We talked with one of the volunteers (a retired teacher, of course) for quite some time.

We were impressed with how well the grounds were kept up. 

The campground had a great vibe and was very convenient to town and walking paths.

On Friday, it was time for some more hiking, so we headed to a trail in Spearfish Canyon alongside Iron Creek which flows down a scenic gorge.

The Spearfish Canyon scenic byway

Another glorious hike in the Black Hills--this time with much nicer weather!

We found a great picnic spot near some rapids.

Interestingly, it appears you can still still stake mining claims.This was posted at various spots on trees along the river.

After lunch, we continued along the Spearfish Canyon byway and stopped at Roughlock falls which wasn't that long of a walk, and wasn't all that spectacular, but it was pleasant nonetheless. While the falls were scenic, it was kind of "Disney-esque" in that the area was cordoned off with railings and a nice wooden walkway. It's great that it is easily accessible for people, but we've decided we like our nature more "natural".

The trail followed the river and had a side path to this nice meadow.

The trail ended with an overlook of a nice cascading set of waterfalls and a larger falls in the background.  There was another viewing area up top, but we didn't feel like walking that far.

At this point we had enough walking, but a roadside picnic area called out to us to stop. So, stop we did, and we sat by the river for a while, enjoying the sights and sounds.

We came home to pork carnitas which had cooked all day in the crock pot while we were gone. Pretty tasty!

Spearfish was hosting a bike race on Saturday which had various routes through mountains on gravel roads (their lowest category even allowed e-bikes).  We were originally planning on riding on some of the gravel roads in the area, but with the race going on, we were not quite sure what roads they would be on. So, we opted instead to do a leisurely roll around town on our bikes.  Spearfish has a really nice set of connected parks and bike trails (especially for such a smaller size town).

The pretty campus of Black Hills State University, right in town

Saturday night brought a severe storm warning with threats of possible 3" hail (!). Fortunately, it all passed north of us, and we just got a a pleasantly mild thunderstorm. We cozied up with a movie and enjoyed the evening. Incidentally, the record for the largest hail stone is held by none other than the state of South Dakota. In 2010 in the town of Vivian, a hail stone measured in at  8" diameter and  almost 2 lbs. Yikes!

Sunday was a really wonderful weather day.  We had thought of taking a bike ride on some gravel roads, but decided that it was a good day to act like retired people and just lounge about and enjoy the day.  

A leisurely afternoon working on the blog

We did at least get out for a stroll along a path to the historic hydro-electric plant which is adjacent to the campground.

Various old turbines and a pipe

A cool old valve

Julie found a unique use for one of our wedding candles. (Yes, we kept them all these years, and yes, Julie packed them into the camper thinking that we could burn them during a romantic dinner sometime.) Anyway, she had grabbed a broken-off fiberglass campsite marker and didn't realize what she was doing until there were lots of tiny shards of fiberglass embedded in her hand. So, she coated her hand in wax and then peeled it off in attempt to remove them. It was kind of successful, but at any rate, who doesn't enjoy peeling wax off of their hands? 😉

For anyone following along and wanting a smashed finger update (I am sure Julie is not interested) . . .  It is healing up well and also seems to be staying attached at this point.

Towards the end of Sunday, we soaked in as much of the beautiful weather as we could, because the following 2 days (Monday and Tuesday) at our next destination near Bozeman, Montana were not promising to be so kind...

Snow on Tuesday! But, it looks like the weather should be nice for when the kids come to visit Wed-Sat!

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