Road trip #4, day 2 - Spearfish Canyon - Deadwood, SD and the ride home

July 24, 2011
Colorado, USA

We rested well in Belle Fourche, SD except for a short time about 2 am when a thunderstorm rolled through. The flashes of lightning woke us first. The Ride was covered, but sitting in the open so thunder had us on our feet checking out the situation through the screen door. The storm gave us a hard rain, tossed a few hail stones around and then moved on.

Before riding out of town, we stopped at the park just across the river near downtown where the geographic center of the USA is located. Well, sort of. The geographic center of the total land mass of the United States is located about 20 miles north of Belle Fourche. It is located on the open prairie and it is marked by a sign and a rock tower known as sheepherder's monument or Stone Johnnie. The official designation is 44 degrees 58 inches north and longitude 103 degrees 46 feet west. This is 30 miles north of town along Highway 85 and 6/10 of a mile east of the highway. It was moved here as Alaska and Hawaii were admitted into the United States in 1959.

We rode the short distance south to Spearfish, stopped for gas and then went in search of breakfast. The search took us to downtown or old town Spearfish. We were about to settle on a chain restaurant up on the interstate when I spied several cars parked at a steak house as we rode by. We turned around and went back to the Shoot the Bull Steak House. As it turned out, it was a bit pricey but they were serving a breakfast buffet and offered omelets cooked to order. The food and the coffee was good and the service excellent.

The plan all along was to ride Spearfish Canyon again and we would make up our minds at Cheyenne Crossing which way to head from there. Hwy 14A is designated as Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. It has been recently resurfaced, probably in preparation for the thousands of motorcycles who will ride it during Sturgis Bike Week in August. The road gently twists through nineteen miles of a narrow gorge over which limestone walls tower on both sides up to a thousand feet. Spearfish Creek runs alongside the road. We stopped to snap a couple of pictures of Bridal Veil Falls.

At Cheyenne Crossing we chose to ride north on Hwy 85 to the towns of Lead (leed) and Deadwood. The ride is beautiful and the road is great. We had it in mind to see the historical Mount Moriah Cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane and Preacher Smith are buried along with a few other historical Deadwood characters. We recently watched the HBO series Deadwood on DVD and find we'd like to know more about the actual history of the area. The road going up to the cemetery is very steep and travels through a residential neighborhood with many beautiful Victorian homes.

Entry is $1 a head. I have never seen the like of this cemetery. How they managed to bury people on the side of a steep mountain boggles the brain. Sheriff of Deadwood during the gold rush days, Seth Bullock is buried outside the cemetery at the top of a rise overlooking Deadwood, this was not a hike for biker boots. Ha! People had left a deck of cards and coins around Wild Bill's grave. Booze bottles, coins and makeshift crosses adorned Calamity Jane's grave. There are several Potter's fields (unmarked graves), a mass grave for victims of a lumber mill fire, a veterans section (including Civil War and Indian War veterans) and sadly, a large children's section. The Chinese section is odd in that there are only a couple of graves. According to the signage, all the other Chinese buried there were disinterred and sent back to China to be reburied. Ol' Glory flies over this cemetery night and day.

After roaming through the visitor center with a bottle of cold water, we rode down the mountain and took a turn through downtown Deadwood and along Main Street. It was busy but looks like fun. The old buildings were occupied by casinos and stores, restaurants, saloons and hotels. There is a Saloon #10. This has to be the spot where Jack McCall shot and killed Wild Bill. Like I said, this was only a ride through.

Hwy 85 and 14A make a loop through the Lead/Deadwood area. Before long we were back at Cheyenne Crossing and decided to stop before starting the journey home. Cheyenne Crossing is a store, cafe and lodge built on the site of an 1870s stage stop. Beside the store is a tent with picnic tables. It is basically a beer tent and beside that is a decked area with tables next to the outdoor cookers. It was hot under the beer tent. We chose a table on the deck where we could catch a breeze. The place claims it is famous for the Indian Tacos so we ordered one we could split (it hadn't been all that long since breakfast) and a couple of cokes. It was busy with bikers and other tourists so it took a while but the Indian Taco was tasty.

We had another day of vacation if we wanted it but decided to spend it somewhere else. We traveled back on Hwy 85 and was surprised at how great the road was. We took Hwy 18 west out of Lusk, deciding we would zip on over to I-25 and cut some time off of the return trip. That did not work out. The bridge was out at the interstate and the detour took us 11 miles north to Douglas, WY before we could get southbound again. We stopped for ice cream and a cold drink in Wheatland, but got bad service from the A&W there.

The skies did not look good between Wyoming and home. We rolled into our drive about 9 pm - slightly damp.

Otherwise, the trip home went really well until the last 60 miles or so. We got caught up in the tail-end and the back build of a nasty thunderstorm that had just dumped 1 inch hail (still stacked on the side of the road like snow) and a ton of rain on Cheyenne. It looked like the concert was canceled and although the rides were running, the midway was all but empty. Worse, the people parked in the park-n-ride area for Frontier Days were going to have to fish their vehicles out of the field -- what vehicles were not submerged in water up to the middle of the tires, or sunk in the mud were surrounded by a moat of muddy water. I doubt the buses could get out either. Yikes! As it is, we rode in and out of rain and wind from Cheyenne on in and counted ourselves lucky to have ridden in behind the worst of it.

Today's ride was 416 miles (just 1 mile shy of what we did yesterday), making the entire two day trip 833 miles.

Slide show of today's ride (130 photos):