Spearfish, South Dakota

Welcome to South Dakota! We've reached our final planned sight-seeing destination. From here, we'll be high-tailing it toward home...not for a couple of days, though. There's still a little bit of work to do before we can wrap up our "Great Lakes 2022" trip. (That's the label I gave it in my photo folder.) 

We spent a leisurely morning before leaving Chadron State Park. Smitty got out for a final walk and one last snack of Negrasska.

When he was safely back inside, Mike and I went out for a walk. It had clouded over just for the beginning of our walk. I turned back to take this photo of our campsite. It was certainly one of the more spacious sites we enjoyed on this trip. It was pretty with fall color all around, tallgrass prairie behind us, and a few pine trees thrown in.

Also looming over us, this bluff with one small tree at the top, growing against all odds.

Walking along, I can never resist taking a picture of something like this:

Thank you for indulging my dandelion fetish. We stopped off to see the horses at the park stables.

There were a few more to our left.

And what a nice place they have here. I'd be happy to be a horse here...if I were invited...and if I were a horse.

Our walk was short, and then we packed up to pull out. On our way out the front gate, I stopped to take a picture of this sign. We didn't spend much time exploring this park since we'd really come to see Fort Robinson.

Behind the sign was this pretty pond. Paddle boats could be rented here.

And then it was just about 25 miles before we crossed the state line into South Dakota. Sorry for the blur. Bumpy road. The sign below the state sign indicated we were traveling the US Marine Corps Memorial Highway. And since I'm a Marine Corps brat, it seemed completely appropriate.

Fairly soon after crossing the state line, we saw a herd of antelope. I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, but I found this one on Creative Commons.

("Antelope" by NatalieMaynor is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)

Here are a couple more I've taken in the past. This one was seen in Teddy Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

These were seen while traveling in Wyoming.

Getting back to South Dakota, the first small town we passed through was Oelrichs. There, we saw this historical marker. Again, this isn't my picture. I found it online with credit given to the photographer.

(Photographed By Barry Swackhamer, September 7, 2015)

Here's what the marker says: 

The Town of Oelrichs, Dakota Territory, began in 1885. Harry Oelrichs (1856-1902) of New York came in 1882 and bought out several large cattle ranches, totaling 35,000 head of cattle, for the Anglo-American Cattle Company. At this time, thousands of Texas Longhorn cattle roamed freely throughout the area.

In 1885 the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad was completed through town. In the same year Harry Oelrichs established his headquarters east of the railroad tracks, which was formerly the Tan Ranch. He brought culture to the town, and many social activities took place. Celebrities frequently visited. Ill health forced him to return to New York in 1887. The town boasted over 2,000 people at this time. In 1887 an abattoir was built near the railroad tracks. Cattle and hogs were slaughtered daily and shipped to eastern markets. The abattoir closed in 1889. The settlers began fencing their claims, closing the open range and forcing the larger ranches out. Oelrichs became a farming and ranching community and remains that today.

Okay, so that was interesting. We were watching the map carefully because we've been through this area before. I took a picture of the map to help explain our concerns. 

We crossed the border where it's circled in teal, and our plan was to drive the highway with the pink arrows (which we did). We didn't want to get off on US 385, marked with a yellow line (where our nav unit wanted to take us), and especially we didn't want to get off on SD 87 marked in red. It's a beautiful road along there, and those areas are stunningly beautiful. When we bought our first RV back in the late 90's (that would be the previous millennium for those keeping track), we kind of closed our eyes and put our finger on the map and selected Wind Cave National Park as our first long trip in the new RV. We had a blast. Neither of us had ever visited South Dakota, and we enjoyed our time in Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park, and the Needles Scenic Highway.

Okay, so here's the part we were scared of: The Needles Eye Tunnel in Custer State Park. It's one of the more interesting spots we've ever driven. Here's a photo I found on Creative Commons.

("Needles Eye Tunnel 2" by foxtail_1 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.)

These are the size restrictions for passing through the tunnel. We're not only too tall...we're also too wide.

Our first RV was quite a bit smaller than the one we're in now. We could make it through the tunnel then, but I got out and walked to the other side, holding up traffic until we'd safely passed through.

Okay, so we watched carefully as we went along, and made sure we stayed on the SD 79 until we reached I-90. The terrain looked pretty much like this most of the way.

Straight and flat...that was our day for most of the day.

We passed by a lot of cattle ranches and at least one bison ranch.

Also, a few abandoned homesteads...

And barns that looked as if they might as well be abandoned...

And some of my favorite classic red barns.

As we approached our final destination of Spearfish, the terrain grew more hilly, and it's very pretty here.

We have three items on our sight-seeing agenda: Drive the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway (19 miles); visit Lead, SD (pronounced "leed"); and visit Black Elk Peak. As it turns out, it's raining and windy this morning. We'll probably just hang out here if the weather doesn't improve. We're just barely awake at this point, and only just now getting a start on our day. You and I will both have to wait to see what happens next. For sure and certain, Friday morning we'll begin the long slog toward home. More later.