Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

The day started out rainy and gray, but turned into a nice afternoon. We were undecided whether to take the scenic drive, and when the weather improved, we decided to head out. The morning was relaxing. I spent some time on my slow-stitching.

When I stitched that far, I decided to move my hoop. I'm having trouble with the Sticky Fabri-Solvy on this particular piece. Sometimes it doesn't stick very well, and it wants to curl up and stick to itself. I moved the hoop to capture the corner, so that it stays down until I can finish the stitching.

Okay, so we chose wisely when we chose this particular RV park. It was just two exits down the interstate from where we are.

Right away, we started seeing pretty views. We were deep in a canyon with steep granite cliffs all around. This is the stuff Mt. Rushmore is made from.

There were some waterfalls along the way, and we paused to see them.

You can see Spearfish Creek in the middle of the image below. The fall colors were so pretty.

Just above center in the image below, you can see Bridal Veil falls. (I wonder how many "Bridal Veil" falls there are in the country. I can think of three right off the top of my head.) There wasn't much water flowing this late in the fall.

The elevation increased as we went until we were more toward the top of the canyon than below. There'd been a surprise dusting of snow overnight. A restaurant worker told us the weather had been 75° two days earlier. On this day, it was in the mid 30's and there was a very cold blustery wind.

Lead was on our list of to-do's for this destination, and the road conveniently took us right there.

Lead was originally a gold mining town, but the mines have been shut down for quite some time. We were hungry by then, and so we stopped for lunch at this "saloon." This was their beer menu. Mike had the Buffalo Snot, which he pronounced as "not bad!" I had my usual hard cider.

We came in cold after parking and walking a short distance. It was also cold in the restaurant. The restaurant worker mentioned above brought us some mugs filled with hot water to warm our hands. That was a very nice touch, and very much appreciated!

All the buildings in town are very old. This is how this one looked from the front door.

We got a kick out of the fireplace. It is a gold-mining town, so it makes sense.

After lunch, we headed across the street to an antique store. This mural was painted on the side of the building.

Inside...oh my. I was more interested in the building than I was in anything they had for sale. It was all too overwhelming to let my eyes rest on any one thing for too long.

Originally, the building had been a bank, and this "man cave" was inside what had formerly been the bank vault.

Back outside and heading to the truck, I noticed this bench made from skis.

And this memorial to lives lost working in the mine.

Where the truck was parked was a big fence. We almost didn't see what was on the other side, but something about it caught my eye, and I climbed some stairs to see over the fence. It was the open pit of the former gold mine. It was impressively deep and HUGE!!!

There were a few more things left over from mining days down the road.

We hadn't planned to go to Deadwood, but it was along the way back. We visited Deadwood on our last visit to South Dakota nearly 20 years ago. It's a fun town with a rich history. There are signs along the main street indicating where this thing or that thing from history had happened. 

The discovery of gold in the southern Black Hills in 1874 set off one of the biggest gold rushes in America. In 1876, miners moved into the northern Black Hills. That’s where they came across a gulch full of dead trees and a creek full of gold. Practically overnight, the tiny gold camp boomed into a town playing by its own rules and attracting outlaws, gamblers and gunslingers along with the gold seekers. Wild Bill Hickok was one of those men who came looking for fortune. But just a few short weeks after arriving, he was gunned down while holding a poker hand of aces and eights – forever after known as the Dead Man’s Hand.

As we drove along, we realized we were one block over from its historic main street, and so we made a turn to drive through.

We didn't stop anywhere, but here is a picture of the old buildings along the main drag. We saw a lot more gift shops and casinos than on our previous visit. The road was paved with brick, but it had been dirt at one time.

Heading back, we passed by some very old farms, some claiming to have been established in the late 1800's...homesteads, no doubt.

And a few more abandoned homesteads.

The landscape was beautiful with shades of blues, greens, and browns, and the clouds casting shadows.

Back at the RV, I worked a little more on my slow-stitching.

I'm hoping to finish this one today. We have a couple of other items on our agenda to prepare for the journey home. We need to fill our propane tanks, and we need to pick up a few things from the grocery store. Also on today's agenda, I'm trying a new soup in the slow-cooker. If it turns out to be good, I'll pass along the recipe. There is one more jar of cherries in simple syrup brought from home in our cupboard. I'm going to bake a Skillet Cherry Cobbler for Two. I figure if I brought it, I have to use it. It's a new rule I just now made up.

The next several days will be driving, driving, driving...long days of driving. We'll drive two days, then take a break for a day, and then two more days to reach home. Our last day of driving will be the shortest at 250 miles. It's a long slog, but it never seems too bad knowing home is at the other end.

Mike took some time to telephone our contractor yesterday and get ourselves back on the schedule to have the reconstruction work finished downstairs. The carpet is ordered and in from Home Depot, and scheduled to be installed on the last day of October. Hopefully, we can put things back in order then. In the meantime, I have appointments scheduled and I need to finish up my art quilt for The Endeavourers. I'll be setting up the sewing machine on the dining room table. I just hope I can find all my fabrics. If not, I guess I'll have no choice but to go shopping. Wouldn't that be a tragedy?