Day Nine- Going to Custer . . .

Our usual starting time each day is 8:30am, although the gang is usually up much earlier. With everything packed up, Spearfish Canyon was our first ride of the day. What a sight! Twists and turns and corners aplenty! A biker’s ream road! We stopped by the road to have a look at Bridal Veil Falls, . . . .

. . . but just a few miles further along we turned off, endured a bit of gravel to gander at Roughlock Falls. . . there were several! We even managed to get a group shot . . . Wally brought the tripod and Scott supplied the camera. What a gorgeous location. The general opinion was that if it had been lunch time, it would have been the perfect picnic spot.

Then out of nowhere, a reservoir appeared and on such a lovely hot day, there were oodles of boats out on the clear blue water. Spearfish Canyon seems to get better every mile!

Our destination was Custer, via Crazy Horse and our turn off happened to be in Lead, SD – we took a little detour – it was doubtful that 3000 people lived here, but we saw quite a number of their homes on this side excursion . . . hahaha! Hill City another side trip, is a quaint little town with an old fashioned downtown, so we stopped at the Dairy Queen for some ice cream – all agreed that their ‘small’ size was a great deal bigger than Canadian ‘small’. And of course, Ted got himself a new hat . . . as did Dave and Big Ted. Too funny!

Crazy Horse was next, where we ate our lunch out on the lawn (– no outside drinks or food allowed inside the facility.) We arrived just in time for the excellent orientation film. The Visitors Center is huge with an Art Gallery and museum, plus workshops where natives are creating their artworks as you watch. There was also a small museum of home items & furniture from the Ziolkowski family plus the workshop of the original sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski. A sculpture 1/34th the size of the mountain is right there for comparison.

Custer is a quick 4 miles from Crazy Horse and we arrived safe & sound mid afternoon. The rest of the afternoon was spent doing laundry and snooping around another interesting western town. Supper was at the Bugling Bull where we had the whole loft to ourselves. The food was fantastic – I doubt if we’ve had any food to complain about the whole trip. The boys ended the day with a beer out on the front stoop.