So off we went to Deadwood to celebrate King Richards birthday, thank you to all those who took the time to email, text and phone himself, the King ~ especially my sister Candy who's perseverance was greatly appreciated by both of us ... you really hung in there Candy through trying to learn YOUR new phone and us having horribly bad cell service here in the beautiful Black Hills.
Deadwood is one of Rick's favorite places (not sure why, but he just loves it) so that was his destination of choice to celebrate the birthday that he felt certain he would never see!
Below is a photo looking out from the parking garage towards main street, looking east I believe, at Bullocks. If you watched the HBO series "Deadwood" (I watched about 30 minutes of it total, the language was just a bit over the edge for me, when every third word was "the big one"). Anyway, Bullocks was the site of the hardware store in the series. It also is another beautiful old building in Deadwood.
Our "dining destination" was the Deadwood Social Club, above, and part of, Saloon Number 10. The original Saloon Number 10 was the site of the shooting and death of Wild Bill Hickok, way back when. I think that perhaps one of the reasons himself loves this little town so much is that it is full of history.
No trip to Deadwood would be complete without a visit to the local Elks Lodge. If the light is on, they are open - no set hours, ya gotta watch for the light!
And as history has it, Rick has his picture taken behind the bar at this Lodge. Sometime we are together in said photo, not this time however ... I'm not available for photo ops these days! So the bartender happily stood in. Doesn't the King look great for an old guy! We had so much fun that night, great dinner, great people along the way, Rick had a blast and I got to be the D.D. through the winding, very winding 20 miles down the black hills roads back to Sturgis!
vast open space, Sir gets to run and play and act like a fool because we have the place pretty much to ourselves! I am just loving it here.
The day after himself's birthday we got on the bikes for a great ride through St. Onge and Belle Fourche then down into Spearfish (one of my favorite places) ~ about a 40 or 50 mile loop ~ great weather, in the low 80's. The weather has been terrific here low 80's nearly everyday (except today which was 90) and beautiful nights in the low 60's perfect sleeping weather!!!
Anyway, on the return from this great ride we stopped at the "Full Throttle" (a "biker bar") that is open for rally ~ there are two or three "big name" establishments here that are open only for rally, as well as many many campgrounds that are only open for a month or so preceding rally and a week or so after rally ends. I guess this is an indication just how profitable rally week is to the area!
With that said, when we were out here in 2002 for rally we rented a house with three other people (friends of ours) ~ people in these parts leave their homes for two weeks every August and rent out the property ~ the proceeds of which make several mortgage payments, if not a years worth of mortgage payments! Kind of a "win/win situation". It sure worked well for us in 2002!
I digress once again ... the photo below is of himself behind one of the bars at the Full Throttle ... hmmm is there a theme here?
About five or so miles from the Full Throttle is the Bear Butte State Park ~ we didn't go there, but the photo below is of Bear Butte ... Beautiful or what?
Yesterday we did my much anticipated ride (in the car so Sir could join us in search of a beautiful swimming hole for him) through Spearfish Canyon ~ absolutely the most gorgeous place I've ever seen.
Seriously, how can you not think this is gorgeous?
The photos above were taken from the outside deck dining area of another of my favorites. After we left there we headed down through the canyon towards Spearfish. Alas, we found a suitable place for Sir to partake in some water sport, where the water wasn't rushing so ferociously that he was in danger.
What a view huh!
And we had it all to ourselves!
Well except for the multitudes of baby butterflies ... thousands and thousands of them, teeny, tiny little fellas ...
So, my earlier post today (seriously, what is up with that two posts in one day?) stated that we'd extended our stay here and hopefully would be dealing with a trailer "situation" here in the Sturgis/Spearfish/Rapid City area ... well himself has spoken and we will be heading westward in the morning ... I hope when the time comes and the problem rears its very ugly head, once again, that I will be able to bite my tongue and not do the "I told you so" ... and rather Sir and I will just go for a nice quiet walk and not fly off the handle (so to speak!!) and hopefully we won't be forced to deal with it when we are climbing over an 8000 foot mountain in Montana, Idaho or into Washington .....
With all that said, I had a terrifically productive day at my sewing machine while the King was out on his bike. It isn't often that I pat myself on the back but I did create a beauty for a very special friend today! I was on such a "roll" that I started a couple other projects too (well cut them out anyway) then found out we are "outta here" in the morning so that creativity sort of faded away ...
As for the "video" below ~ don't even bother .... it wouldn't load and I can't get rid of the foolish icon thing. Any advice Chad - mac/iphoto/video???? UGH and of course it was a great one of Sir Arlo fighting with Spearfish Creek!
2 comments:
Great post...beautiful photos!!
Unkle Rickle looks so handsome for an old dude :-)
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