Black Hills- Day 1

We decided to go on a quick family vacation over Memorial Day weekend.  Because the Black Hills aren't too far from where we live, and no one but me has been there, we decided it was the perfect place.

The first day we stayed in Lead (pronounced Leed). Lead is a gold mining town that was built in a canyon.  The homes go straight up the hill.  It is pretty impressive. It is a beautiful town, built right in the forest.  It rained the whole time we were in Lead though.  The first morning we decided to go up Spearfish Canyon to Roughlock Falls. We decided to hike to to falls that were about a mile away, even though you could drive right to them.  We only saw three other people on the trail. 

Not those three.  We saw some beautiful flowers, beaver dams, a pond, meadows, moss covered rocks and a small pine tree that someone had decorated as a Christmas tree.

We would have missed all of these sights if we had decided to drive up to the falls. Once we got to the falls, there were a lot more people. I guess the rain scared them away from the beautiful walk.

I think the kids enjoyed time to just be themselves.

After the falls, we went to Belle Fourche ( pronounced Bell Foosh).  We went there because it is the geographic center of the nation.  They have a small museum there, and they let us all in free because DSH had served in the military.  The actual site is located on private property, so they have a monument in town.

Yes, it was still raining.  Because we hadn't had enough outdoor activities in the rain, we decided to go to the fish hatchery.  The fish hatchery had three ponds with three different sizes of fish.  2T bought $2 worth of fish food and all of the kids fed the fish.

This was the kids favorite stop thus far.  They loved watching the water "boil" when they threw in a handful of food.  The ducks would try to get the food, but with the large fish, the ducks would back away and let the fish get the food.

We finished off the day by going to an all you can eat dinner buffet.  They were serving snow crab and prime rib. That was our kind of buffet.  An all you can eat is the way to go with hungry teenagers.  We have never taken our kids to something like that, so it was a real treat for them.

And it didn't hurt that my favorite food is snow crab. What a great way to end our first day!