Spearfish Canyon Waterfall

Yesterday (Friday) was our last hurrah in seeing the Rapid City/Black Hills area of South Dakota. We are moving tomorrow to Casper, Wyoming, for a week and we knew that the day before we break camp we clean, laundry, grocery shop, kinda lay low since the next day will be nerve wracking closing down, traveling, finding the new campground, setting up. We had not gone into Sturgis, Deadwood, or Lead (pronounced leed) and decided to see what we could in one day. Dave still feeling punky so I did the driving while he stared out the window. Sturgis - we cannot figure out where 250,000 visiting biker people stay in this little town when Bikers Week (Harley-Davidson owners converge here for rally) is on. Where are the hotels? And we were also told it is not just one week but typically most of August is awful in terms of local residents moving around and living. A lady told us that the locals leave town, rent out their homes to the bikers. Kinda like WoolyBear Festival in Vermilion - locals leave town during the one day in Vermilion! We can appreciate what the lady said.

From Sturgis we moved on to Deadwood. Cute little town. Lots of history, casinos, bars, restaurants, hotels. And there were alot of people there. From Deadwood we moved one mile further down the road to Lead. Depressed town since the gold mine/ore mine has shut. We stopped at the visitors center and while there struck up a conversation with a lady selling coffee. She suggested we go to Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway and go to Spearfish Waterfalls. She said - the view is beautiful, you won't regret it. Off we went, and canyon is exactly what she said - beautiful. The falls? Wow, I could have stayed there all day. The roar of the waterfall, the crisp clear water in the stream, the spray, canyon cliffs overhead. Gorgeous! Heaven on earth. Traveled the backroads through the Black Hills National Forest back and told each other that this whole area is very appealing, we could live here for months on end.