Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Spearfish

A neighbor suggested, a couple days ago, to be sure and take a ride along Hwy 14A, the Boulder Canyon. Since it was the road to Deadwood we thought today would be a good day to check it out.It was a nice, curvy road up into the hills and down through the canyon but not unlike anything we have already seen.

As we came into Deadwood we thought we would stop at the visitor center for more information. There's a huge parking lot and what surprised us was the parking meters at every single parking spot. Kinda made us mad so we skipped the visitor center.

We drove through town and there was absolutely no place to park that didn't have a meter. There were a lot of old and cool buildings but they all seemed to be casinos or restaurants. We were definitely not impressed with Deadwood.

So, we continued on along Hwy 14A through the town of Lead and several miles further we took the turnoff at Cheyenne Crossing towards Spearfish.


At last we finally found something wonderful. The narrow road winds through Spearfish Canyon following a lovely stream called Spearfish Creek for 20 miles. There were many places to stop and enjoy the scenery and most had fish, so Doug was in heaven.


It took almost two hours to drive the 20 miles with so much to see. This stop was Roughlock Falls. Beautiful and cool amidst the trees.


From there we took a detour down a dirt road to the filmsite of Dances With Wolves. I've never seen the movie so it didn't mean much to me, but Doug was thrilled.

Our next stop was Bridal Veil Falls. These reminded me of the some of the falls in Washington and Oregon. We had a nice visit with a gentleman who had ridden his bike eight miles uphill from Spearfish and then was going to coast back down. He advised us to check out the fish hatchery when we hit Spearfish.

So we did! And were we ever glad! It was fabulous. We arrived late in the day and we had the park mostly to ourselves.


The D. C. Booth hatchery was established in 1896 and filled with wood troughs and running water. Today it serves more as a living fisheries museum for the public. It's like a beautiful park.


There's a replica of an old Fisheries Railcar used when railroad cars transported fish across the country.


Hatchery workers used boats like Yellowstone Boat #39 to collect trout eggs on Yellowstone Lake to be brought back to the hatcheries.

We were disappointed that the museum was closed.

But I did get a picture of Doug with his new best friend.

There was so much to see that Spearfish will be on our list for a return visit.


To top off a lovely day, we had a full moon rise over the hilltops to guide us home.

Perfect!

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