Spearfish near Mount Rushmore. We had wonderful weather at the beginning of the week: warm, not hot or humid. Near the end of the week it got a cold and rainy.
On Monday we drove from Hill City to Spearfish. Spearfish is not far from Hill City. This is important as I am expecting a shipment of medications at Hill City and we will need to drive back to get them. There is a quilt shop in Spearfish so I drove to see it late Monday. Unfortunately it was so late that I only had time for a quick once-over before they closed. I hope to see it again before we leave. The campground where we are staying in Spearfish has a petting farm with 2 lambs, 2 goats, and 2 calves. They are fenced in but they are very interesting to Max and Max is interesting to them. A funny thing about their interactions is that when they butt the fence (and they do) Max is totally freaked out and jumps back 6 feet.
On Tuesday we drove to Devils Tower in Wyoming.
It is an amazing rock formation in Wyoming near the South Dakota/Wyoming border. You remember, that mountain from Close Encounters.
We took a 2 k walk around the tower and saw the tower from all sides.
I thought the columns (formed by magma shooting up through sedimentary rock) were very interesting.
On the walk we could see some of the fallen columns up close.
We also saw 4 climbers who were part way up the formation. On the left is our view of the climbers, on the right are closeups.
The Indian story of Devil’s Tower formation is much more interesting than the white man’s versions. 7 little girls were playing near a stream. A bear came by and was going to eat them. The girls climbed onto a rock and begged the rock to save them. To save the girls the rock grew toward the sky. The bear continued to scratch at the rock (hence the striations) and the rock kept on growing until the girls reached the sky and became the star formation Pleiades.
Nearby there was a prairie dog town so Rich and I took a walk around the edge to see the animals. They were so cute.
This a picture of the town with its sentries.
And these are closeups of the little guys. I stood near a hole and waited for them to get comfortable. Note the last little guy laying on his back munching away.
Also nearby was what they called the Red Bed, a formation of beautiful red soil. I love this color.
On Wednesday we drove to Deadwood, an old time town in South Dakota. This was a mining town in the 1890s. The downtown area burned down and was rebuilt 3 times. Eventually the town began to deteriorate, so to bring the town back South Dakota allowed them to have low dollar gambling in town with the proceeds to fund reconstruction of the town.
It has been very successful, the downtown looks great.
After spending some time window shopping in Deadwood we drove back to the Campground in Hill City to pick up my meds. Since we have been traveling, I have a major hassle every year getting my medications set up through the mail order drugstore. I have to guestimate how long it will take for them to process the prescriptions, then guess when the meds will arrive, then guess where we will be. I have 16 different meds and they do not all process at the same time. This year 14 made it to the first shipment. Unfortunately I guessed wrong about how long it would take and they did not arrive while we were at the place I had them shipped. Since the next campground was only 70 miles away I figured we could drive back when they arrived. Also unfortunately, the other 2 meds were split up and when I called one was too far along to change the address and the other was not far enough to change so they are both going to a bad address. Once everything is set up it is not so difficult until the next year when I send in the prescriptions and go through the whole process again. On the off quarters the time it takes to process a request is much more regular and I can predict it more easily.
On Thursday we drove around the Spearfish Canyon loop.
The canyon has lots of interesting rock formations.
There is a Waterfall called Bridal Veil in the canyon.
There was also more of the lovely red clay.
The loop goes up the canyon then around to Lead (another mining town) then through Deadwood and back to Spearfish. After the drive I went to the local Quilt Shop. And after that we went to the local Walmart. Walmart sure is everywhere.
On Friday we were going to leave this area. Unfortunately my tea (ordered on the internet, but misaddressed {I received someone else’s order} and then reordered) had not arrived yesterday so we decided to wait another day. It rained all last night and this morning, so today we had a lazy day. Luckily the Tea arrived today so tomorrow we take off for places west. We will be heading toward Yellowstone. We will stop along the way and stay there for 2 days. Then we will head to Yellowstone for a week or so and then on to the Grand Tetons.
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