You know your day is going to be awesome when you have only driven 10 miles or so and you see this mountainous rock sticking out of the ground.
This is a view of it from farther away. We traveled along US 85 north all day, with the last 10 miles on Interstate 90 when 85 merged with it coming into Spearfish. We could have taken 14A, the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway but I wanted to drive through Deadwood since that is one of the towns I had never seen. Surprised how busy Deadwood was, being a Saturday had something to do with that. Perhaps some day we will camp in this area again and visit Deadwood in the car.
We were in South Dakota about 25 miles after our day began. We only had 45 more miles to go, but the entire 70 miles trip took us around 2 hours. The only traffic, outside of a few cars until we got closer to Deadwood was...
...Hunters, lots and lots of hunters. Frankly I did not know you could drive these on a Highway, but we must have seen 30 of them, and over half were driving on the highway going the other direction from us. Hunters mean NO WILDLIFE VIEWING. Yes, NOTHING all day!
The fall colors were wonderful. Above you can see the contrast between the evergreen trees and the deciduous trees.
This is Lewie's Saloon & Eatery, just outside of Leads, which is just outside of Deadwood. It looks like a very interesting place, and I am sure it is very popular.
Soon we were driving through Deadwood, and it was busier than it looks like in these pictures.
We climb out of Deadwood and within 10 miles we are hitting I-90 and headed for Spearfish. The vast change of scenery today was something else. What a scenic drive, hard to believe that it was only 70 miles in length.
We did something today that we rarely do...stopped at a KOA. This campground is one of the few between North Spearfish and tomorrow's destination of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. It is 185 miles to the RV Park we found to stay in (this time of year they are hard to find in that area), and another 20 miles to the south entrance to the park. Our plan is to get to Belfield east of the park where we will get our campsite. "IF" we are still up to it, we will leave the car and take the motorhome into the park because it is more comfortable, and it is higher up making it easier for Marcia to see the sites. If we don't go into the park tomorrow, we will do it the next day. Still have not decided about the north entrance. Lucky for us, we have a number of days of great weather, some of which we need to use to head south before it gets too cold and yucky.
Had some time after grocery shopping to sit outside with Indy who was watching everything and everybody and every dog. In that trailer is a large, older dog and when it went in, she could not help but let it know that she missed it. Indy stands on her two back legs a lot, and it was some of the first pictures I got of her doing it. The KOA has lots of grass, and a small dog park where the dogs could be off leash, and Bubba and Indy both enjoyed that...so much so I took them twice.
Gosh, Deadwood certainly has changed since I was there last. I rather liked the old version. Beautiful country. That Indy, she can see better standing up! Too cute!
ReplyDeleteHaving never been there, to us it was like a HUGE tourist trap, but with all the history behind it, I would still like to go through and visit it some day.
DeleteI so much agree with Nancy above. Deadwood used to look like an old west town. Last time we were there we were mighty disappointed. It is now a gambling tourist attraction. Not nearly as nice (in our opinion). As far as old west towns, Dodge City is ok. We like Tombstone best.
ReplyDeleteWe have always said that we need to spend an extra day in Arizona just to see Tombstone...one of these days...
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