The main purpose of this trip was to attend a Survivor concert in Deadwood (which you can read about here, if you're so minded) but we also took in some of the other local sights and attractions while we were in the area, so I've put this page together to (finally!) let y'all see the rest of the pics we took while we were gone.
We left Denver on Thursday the 16th of June and drove as far as
Casper, WY--we could probably have made Spearfish in one day, but it
would have meant more hours in the car than either my hubby or I
really wanted to mess with. We didn't stop to take any pics that first
day out; we've covered the stretch of highway between Denver and
Cheyenne, WY quite often (my parents lived there for many years) and
there's actually not that much to see between Cheyenne and Casper
other than a lot of rolling prairie. (Plus they were doing a bunch of
construction on I-25, so we couldn't really have stopped even if we'd
wanted to.) When we got to Casper, it turned out that there was a
small planetarium right next door to our hotel, and since His
Geekiness is into astronomy, we had to go check that out. There was a
cottontail bunny nosing around in the grass just outside, but
unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me so you'll just have to
take my word for it that he was very cute.
Plus inside the planetarium, they were playing some lovely space-y
new-age-type music over the PA system before the show, and we found
out the artist name and album title from the planetarium employees on
our way out. (And I've since added several Geodesium CD's to our
collection. 
)
We drove on to Spearfish the next day, and by the time we'd gotten
checked into our hotel and been somewhere for something to eat, it was
too late to really go and do much of anything else. We did tour the DC
Booth Historic Fish Hatchery on Saturday morning, but since the
Survivor show was that same day, and I was paranoid about making sure
our digital camera's battery would last all the way through the
concert, we didn't really get any pics of that, either.
So, this record really starts on Sunday the 19th, when we drove the alternate branch of US 14 south through Spearfish Canyon. It's listed as a scenic byway and definitely lives up to the name--the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. If you've seen the movie Dances With Wolves, some scenes from that were filmed in the general area.
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 100 KI believe this was called "Bridal Veil Falls"... beautiful...
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 83 KAnother of the falls, with yours truly standing in for some scale.
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On Monday the 20th, we tried at first to visit a local wildlife sanctuary, but it turned out that it was closed that day, so we ended up at the High Plains Western Heritage Center instead. Which was quite interesting, actually; it's a well-set-up museum with plenty of informative exhibits, and definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the area.
 58 KWhat's a western museum without a stuffed bison or two?
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 42 KI unfortunately can't remember the name of the fellow that this statue is of, but it's an impressive piece of artwork, if only for its size. The photo doesn't really convey a sense of scale, but trust me--it's gigantic.
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 59 KA view of an exhibit showing what an old-time newspaper office looked like.
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 50 KAnother view of the statue, from the second-floor balcony.
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 69 KAnd a four-legged local resident, who was hanging around in the parking lot as we were leaving.
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The Black Hills area of South Dakota is riddled with caves, and we had
toured several when we visited Mount Rushmore a few years ago. There
was one within driving distance of Spearfish that we hadn't been to
yet, however--namely Wonderland Cave--so that was where we went on
Tuesday the 21st. It was quite enjoyable; geology's been one of my
hobbies for a long time, so I find caves fascinating. Alas, though, it
reminds me just how out of shape I really am every time I have to
climb that many stairs--and don't ask me to remember the names of
these formations after all this time!
 99 KThe scenery outside the cave
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 50 KAnd one more four-legged local that we met coming out of the cave.
He's not quite in focus, alas, but this was when we still had our old camera and I couldn't really get close enough for a better shot. He was quite cute, though! |
It had been sunny and beautiful Tuesday morning when we were driving
up to the cave, but when we came out after taking the tour, it was as
though a cloud had rolled right down on top of everything--the fog was
just unbelievable! It was still fairly early, but there was no point
in trying to drive around the country when visibility was down to a
quarter-mile or less, and there weren't any other "indoor" attractions
that we were interested in seeing, so we just had to head back towards
Spearfish and the hotel. Fortunately, though, the fog thinned out the
further west we went, so we decided to just keep going. We crossed the
border back into Wyoming, then drove up past Devil's Tower (and
stopped to take a few pics along the way
)
and down through Sundance before catching I-90 and coming back into
Spearfish that way.
 96 KIt sure is gorgeous country up that way...
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 35 KAnd the Tower itself is really spectacular.
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We finally bid farewell to Spearfish and South Dakota on Wednesday the 22nd, heading south into Nebraska and our hotel in Scottsbluff. That's not really TOO long a drive, though, and on the way we passed within a few miles of Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, so we stopped and went through the visitor's center. Which is well worth seeing if you're ever in the area; they have some really interesting exhibits on the prehistoric animals of the region, as well as a good-sized collection of Native American artifacts; the rancher who originally owned the land that's now the National Monument enjoyed very good relations with the local Sioux tribes, and many of the items in the museum were gifts given to him and his family. Unfortunately, the room they keep all that stuff in was very dark, so I wasn't really able to get any good pics of it...
 39 KI believe this is part of the original homestead that became the National Monument.
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 60 KOne of the exhibits in the visitor's center.
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 51 KAnd the same from a different angle, along with my hubby (who was too interested in the prehistoric fauna to notice me taking his picture
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Well, that's it for that trip--we spent the night in Scottsbluff and came on home to Denver the next day. Hope you enjoyed the pics!
