Spearfish, South Dakota

 

Two and a half days of heavy rain cut into our stay in Spearfish, South Dakota, but we found time to visit a lot of interesting sites in the Northern Black Hills region.

Our favorite expedition was a drive through Spearfish Canyon. We loved the steep, wooded canyon walls dotted with very accessible waterfalls.

🪶Since we’ve visited the Rushmore memorial before, we decided to spend a day at the Crazy Horse memorial and the Indian Museum of North America. We learned a lot about the efforts to complete the monument from one of the board members that manages the foundation. They hope to see the monument finished in 20 years, and when complete, the sculpture will be about three times the size of Mt. Rushmore.

There are lots of interesting towns in the western Bad Lands / Black Hills area, thanks to the Custer expedition and the gold rush of the late 1800s.

🤠 We visited Deadwood. The final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok, and the source of hundreds of outlaw stories, some true.

🚜🌾The High Plains Western Heritage Center does a great job describing early frontier life for everyone who wasn’t an outlaw.

🐟🎣 The DC Booth fish hatchery is part of the National Park system. We learned a lot about the role the hatchery played in replenishing the Black Hills rivers from the knowledgeable volunteers. We highly recommend visiting this site.