Weeks 2 & 3 in Spearfish

September 23 to October 7:

During our second and third weeks in South Dakota we experienced wide swings in the weather. We had everything from temperatures in the 80's to one night of freezing temperature.We took advantage of some nice days to drive in several canyons in the area to see the fall colors on the trees.

We visited several of the towns nearby during these weeks: Deadwood, Lead, Sturgis and Rapid City. Deadwood in an old mining town established during the South Dakota gold rush that has become a tourist destination based on the legends of Wild Bill Hickok & Calamity Jane along with a number of gambling casinos. Lead in where the Homestake Mining Company was located along with it's large gold mine that closed in 2002 leaving the town struggling to find something to replace the mine. Sturgis is home to the world's largest motorcycle rally each year in August, the Black Hills Motor Classic along with Fort Meade and it's Veteran's Administration facilities. Rapid City is the largest town in the area with a population of about 75,000. It is home to Ellsworth Air Force Base where one of the nation's B-1B bomber squadrons is stationed.

We made two trips to Rapid City during these time frame: one to site see and one to attend a "beer festival". We visited the South Dakota Air and Space Museum located at the entrance to Ellsworth where they have over 20 airplanes dating from WWII to a modern B-1B bomber along with a nice museum.

We also walked around downtown Rapid City where they have statues on almost every corner including 42 of the US presidents. The downtown area seemed very "alive" with all of the buildings being occupied by stores, restaurants and other establishments.

Connie with our 1st President, George Washington

We saw this in he window of a "high-end" pawn shop in downtown Rapid City

We also visited the Dinosaur Park which overlooks the city. The park and "dinosaurs" where built as a WPA project during the Great Depression.

Another day we returned to Rapid City to attend their Octoberfest/Beer Festival. There were over 70 microbreweries from South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado that were at the event and a polka band that played.

Mike with LBJ

 We spent one day visiting Sturgis and Fort Meade which is located a couple miles outside of town. Fort Meade was one of the forts built in the 1870's during the South Dakota gold rush to protect the whites coming for the gold from the Indians. Today Fort Meade is a National Guard facility along with a large Veteran's Administration location. There are a number of buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century that are still in use at the fort.

Sturgis is most famous for the motorcycle rally held each year in August. This year about 500,000 people attended the rally (click on this article in USA Today about the event). During most of the year there about 6,500 people residing in Sturgis, so you can see how packed the city becomes during these two weeks. We walked around the downtown area, bought some "Sturgis" items and then visited the Knuckle Brewing Company to sample some of their brews.

We visited Deadwood a couple of times: once to attend their Octoberfest and once to walk the downtown. The Octoberfest ended up being quite small with the only activities (other than drinking beer) being a Weiner Dog race and a beer barrel roll. The downtown has a number of saloons and all of the hotels have casinos. Deadwood was the third place to have legalized gambling in the USA after Nevada and then Atlantic City. The buildings all date from the early 20th century since most of the original structures were made of wood and burned during several fires the city experiences over the years. We attended a "reenactment" of the murder of Wild Bill Hickok in one of the saloons and I got to play the riverboat captain who was sitting at the table playing poker with Wild Bill when he was shot. My one line was "I've been shot" since the bullet that killed Bill ended up in my forearm (the captain showed this wound to everyone the rest of his life). Wild Bill had only been in Deadwood for three weeks before he was killed, but he has made the town famous.

We spent another day visiting the town of Lead (pronounced "leed"). They have a Visitor's Center/Museum that overlooks the Open Cut of the Homestake Gold Mine. We toured the museum and then did a walking tour of the downtown area. The gold mine was open from the late 1870's until 2002 during which it became the largest and deepest gold mine in North America with tunnels 8,000 feet below the surface. The Manuel brother discussed the mine and then sold it to a group that included the father of William Randolph Hearst for $70,000 in 1877. A number of processes to get more gold out of the ore were developed by employees of the Homestake Mine. At Today the mine is home to the Sanford Labs where they do a lot of science based on physics in the old mining tunnels. With the closing of the mine the town has suffered and a number of the buildings in the downtown blocks are vacant.

We took a couple of drives through the canyons located nearby to see the fall colors. In Spearfish Canyon we hiked to a couple of waterfalls, Spearfish Falls and Roughlock Falls.

We also took drives through Boulder Canyon and Vanocker Canyon which are located near Sturgis and another canyon located near Rapid City. All had beautiful fall colors which we decided photos would not do justice (the skies was overcast).

We took advantage of a couple of warmer days to ride our bikes in Spearfish. Spearfish has a hike/bike trail that runs about 12 miles through town along the Spearfish Creek. It is a great place to ride with several parks located along the path. The trees along the river are also turning colors with the cooler temps. We also ordered a set of "disc golf" from Amazon and played a part of the disc golf course located in Spearfish.