Tuesday, May 21 - Tuesday, May 28, 2024
On Wednesday, May 22 we hitched up and drove to Fish 'n Fry Campground near Deadwood, SD for three nights. This campground had a pretty creek running through the back of it and our site backed up to the creek. It had 50 amp electric and water. This site didn't have sewer, however there was a dump station. It was Passport America for only $26.50 per night. They allow packages to be sent there so John is unwrapping all his goodies from Amazon.
On Thursday we drove through Deadwood, an old mining town, and stopped at the visitor's center. Then we drove to Sturgis. I wanted to go just to see it, but there was no way we were going in August for the motorcycle rally. It was pretty quiet, even though it was Memorial Day weekend.
John bought a t-shirt and hat and I got my can coozie. I collect those because they are small, don't weigh anything, are inexpensive, and I use them on my Yeti insulated cup.
After leaving Sturgis we went to Spearfish and did some grocery shopping (put the cold things in a cooler). Then we drove through Spearfish Canyon.
I was a little disappointed. It was pretty but nothing like what I expected. There wasn't any signage to tell you where things were.
The next stop was Lead (pronounced Leed). We drove through the old mining town. These mining towns were built down in the valley, so all the streets go up or down from the main street. We stopped at the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center. The original ore body was discovered in 1876. In 1877 the original claim was sold to George Hearst. The Homestake Mine was in continuous operation for 126 years; over that time the miners extracted 41 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver. They originally dug into the mountain, but then realized that the gold went very deep so they dug a pit. It's a deep pit and we couldn't see all the way to the bottom of it.
If you look closely you can see small dots in the pit. That was where the original shafts were. After they closed the mine they started using the underground areas for scientific experiments. There's a good website you can read if you're interested: https://leadhistoricpreservation.org/about-lead/homestake-gold-mine
On Friday we went on a day trip to Devil's Tower. It was a lot bigger than I had imagined. It's 867' high from the visitor center to the summit. It's 1,374 acres, about 2.15 square miles, and the first national monument, dedicated September 24, 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt.
We took the Tower Trail around the base, 1.7 miles. I have to say this out of shape old girl did pretty good, although John could have done it twice in the time it took me to do it once.
On Saturday we went to Picnic Spring Campground near Ludlow, SD. I never knew the area north of the Black Hills was so unpopulated. There weren't many campgrounds to choose from so we decided to try this forest service campground. I was concerned that there wouldn't be any sites available because it was Memorial Day weekend but there were several. It's dry camping, no hookups. It was back about 5-1/2 miles on a gravel road, but really pretty. We would go again.
We are heading for Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Half of the sites in Cottonwood Campground are first come first serve. We want to make sure we get in there on a weekday, so we decided to stop in Regent, ND at the south end of the Enchanted Highway. We got to the Enchanted Highway Campground on Monday, May 27 and we're the only people here. It's a little city campground with full hookups for $20 per night.
Here's the view from the window as I sit here writing this blog.
Today has been cleaning, laundry and blog day. Tomorrow we'll go north and see all the sculptures on the Enchanted Highway.
Roving on...
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".
Genesis 1:1
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