We spent the morning we were leaving packing the last of our crap while Matt worked, and then I had to go to work… Yay, work. 

Luckily I was able to leave early and headed home. I was home before 4:00, took a quick shower, grabbed the last of our crap, and we were off!

It had been a long time since I’ve driven anywhere that seemed so far OUT there. I mean, “Next Services 84 miles?!?!?”  

The road was super cool, though. We kinda skirted this huge thunderstorm system, and got rained on a little bit, but mostly we were treated to the coolest moody skies and lightning show I’ve seen in a LONG time. 

Thankfully, too, we had daylight for most of the drive – until the last twenty or so miles of twisty, turny mountain roads in a place I didn’t know had mountains. The lightning periodically lit up the night and we got a glimpse… It was a surreal experience, really. 

I managed to stay awake and do the driving, and got us safely to our Super8 in Deadwood, SD. We checked in, laid down, and (I at least) tried to relax… The room was super nice, surprisingly, and the bed was damned comfortable. Took me a bit to chill out after driving, but eventually I fell asleep. 

I (of course) woke up stupid early and read a book for a while in bed… Eventually Matt woke up and we went down to breakfast, which was served at the hotel’s adjacent casino. Kinda funny. It was alright, at least there was a waffle maker and the coffee was good and hot. 

We didn’t dilly dally too long before we finished getting our shit together, verified we could leave the car at the Super8, and we were off!

We found the proper Mickelson Trail trailhead, took all the pics and videos, paid our users fee, and we were off!

The first fifteen or so miles were “uphill.” Nothing terrible – this is a rails to trails with nothing over a 4% grade – but most definitely up. 

The scenery was beautiful! There were areas of pine and aspen, wide open spaces, and everything was SO green! There were also tunnels, which were super cool, too. All the history in the old railroad lines and how the tunnels were built and stuff was really cool to see and read about. The trail is really nice for all the signs explaining historic stuff along the way, as well as rest areas complete with restrooms and even tools for public use. 

Eventually we hit the high point on the trail, and we flew down the hill (with a few excruciating bumps – my ass HURT by then and my hamstring was cramping) and into Hill City. 

We found our hotel (another Super8!) and thankfully were able to check in a little early. We threw our bikes in the room, got out of our chamois, and went to find food and beer. By this point, I was pretty well bonking and didn’t care where we ate. The Tin City Saloon was right there and looked alright, so in we went. 

My mushroom and swiss burger and some local IPA or another were amazing. Or maybe I was just absolutely starving….After we’d downed our lunch, we went back to the hotel, where we soaked in the hot tub for a bit and then showered. 

After chilling for a while, we figured we’d better get out of the room for a while before we fell asleep at 6:00 pm. We’d seen this cool looking winery, With the Wind, and we decided to try it. 

I had something port-like first, which was delicious, and Matt decided on a wine slushy… It tasted like frozen cough syrup. Gross. It even turned his tongue good and red. Ew. We both had a dry white after that, which was much better than Matt’s cough syrup slushy. 

We’d had enough by that point, so we went back to the Super8 (via the popcorn store) and went to bed, where we ate said popcorn before falling asleep. What a day!

Holy shit, I slept past 6:00 am!!!!! I made some coffee and had it in bed while reading a book… So nice!

Matt eventually woke up, and we decided to leave the hotel for breakfast – we’d seen the Hill City Cafe and it looked really good!

Coffee and breakfast sandwiches later, we went back to the hotel, grabbed cameras, and went for a wander about town. 

We found the train depot, where they had a tourist train leaving shortly, and we were able to chat with the engineer for a few. He told us about the locomotive he was working on, made in 1928 in Philadelphia. We learned about the standard gauge railroad and that this particular route had one of the steepest grades a standard gauge could go – 6%. We also got to see (and hear!) the train leaving town, which is always a cool experience with the steam and the whistle and all that stuff. 

We wandered around town a little bit longer, hitting up the beef jerky place (Beef Jerky Experience) and sampling (and purchasing) some jerky. It was delicious!

Then it was back to the hotel and loaded our bikes back up – time to head to Crazy Horse!

The ride there was pretty easy, thankfully. My ass hurt SO bad – I’d squeal out loud every time I sat down on my saddle for the first little bit. The path was uphill-ish, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. Before we knew it, we made the turn to Crazy Horse. We paid our entry fee and rode up to the visitors center. 

That place was cool. We couldn’t get quite all the way to the sculpture, but we could see it well enough from the viewing platform. We also saw a film about the artist who started carving it and learned about the process of figuring out how to get the thing carved. It’s nuts, involving cranes and earth movers and all kinds of heavy machinery. So cool!

After checking out the museum and gift shop, we got back on our bikes for a 6.3 mile, 28 minute rip downhill into Custer. Of course, we got there too early to check in – the office wasn’t even open – and went to the local brewery (Mt. Rushmore Brewing Company) for lunch. A chicken club sandwich, a French dip, and a few beers later, it was time to check in to the hotel. 

The Chalet Motel is super cute! It’s a bunch of little cabins that look like their namesake. And the lady at the front desk was amazing. She told us the rooms were really small, too small for our bikes, and once we tried it and believed her, she showed us to the locked shed where our bikes spent the night. She gave is a great recommendation for dinner and even offered us her car to drive there if it was raining. Talk about good old fashioned midwestern hospitality!

We showered, chilled, and went to the Custer Wolf for dinner. YUM! Good food, good beer… When we were finished, we went back to the hotel and went to bed. 

I woke up at a reasonable hour – after 6:00! And when I peeked out the window, THE SUN WAS OUT!!! Hot damn, it wasn’t supposed to be! So exciting!

We wandered out fairly early and found some breakfast at the Baker’s Bakery Cafe. Veggie omelette FTW! After we finished eating, we wandered around town for a little while and checked out some of the cool buildings. Custer is a cute little town. 

After wasting a bit of time, we grabbed our bikes out of the shed and packed them up. We didn’t want to leave too early, because there’s a little bar about an hour down the trail that didn’t open till 11:00, and we thought it would be novel to stop for a beer. 

The weather held nicely as we rode out of town, and we spent some time playing with cameras and the drone. We managed to waste enough time that the Hitchrail Bar in Pringle was open when we got there. We went in and had a beer. It was a cool, funky, VERY western bar. So much fun to stop. 

We continued on down the trail, and as the landscape opened up, the wind picked up. A fucking HEADWIND. Yay. 🙄

We ended up just putting our heads down and pedaling for all we (okay, I) were worth just to make it to Edgemont in time for our shuttle. 

We ended up making it to Edgemont with about a half hour to spare. As we rode in, we saw the van that was supposed to pick us up was already there. We’d planned on having lunch, which we didn’t have time for anymore. Turns out that was a good thing, because there wasn’t a damned thing open in the entire town. Thankfully, we had all the beef jerky we bought yesterday, and we happily munched it in the van on the way back to Deadwood. 

Our van driver, Bill, loaded our bikes onto the back of the van after we changed our clothes, and we hit the road back to Deadwood. 

Bill was a great driver. He’s a tour guide, too, so he had tons of great information and stories to tell. He gave us a couple of recommendations for dinner in Deadwood, as well as thoughts for future trips. 

We got back to Deadwood, threw our bikes into our car, checked back into the hotel, and hit the hot tub. Then it was showers, and we headed out the door for the evening. 

Matt insisted the historic downtown was up the hill from the Super8, so up we went. I wasn’t so sure, but whatever. I wasn’t in the mood to argue. About a half mile up the hill, we saw a sign and realized it was the other way. I laughed. Bonus miles!

We finally found Main St. and found Mustang Sally’s (which driver Bill had suggested) for dinner. A giant beer and a burger apiece later, we moved on to Wild Bill Saloon. They called it “the museum with the bar,” and that was accurate. The place was super cool. If you looked up “wild west bar” in a dictionary, you’d find a picture of this place. I had an Old Fashioned – it just seemed like the right thing to have in a place like that. It was delicious, anyway. 

We wanted to hit up one more bar, Saloon Number 10, supposedly where Wild Bill was shot and killed. It was also very Old West, right down to the sawdust on the floor. Another beer there, and we were about done. 

We walked back to the Super8 and went to bed, satisfied that we’d had a good ride and survived to tell about it. Tomorrow, we go home. 

It’s nice to not have to get up for anything specific sometimes! I mean, I still woke up early-ish, but it was almost 7:00 am! Yay! 

When Matt woke up, we went down to breakfast, back to the casino for waffles and coffee. Yum.

We packed up the last of our stuff and left the hotel. We decided to stop by the Mt. Moriah Cemetery to wander for a bit. It was beautiful, and had the bonus history of having the likes of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane buried there. It was definitely worth a stop for a little bit.

When we’d had enough, we got back in the car and took off for Spearfish. We didn’t actually see the town, but that wasn’t the point. We headed to Spearfish Canyon, which we’d heard SO much about and how beautiful it is. Well, it’s true. It was gorgeous. It was kinda cloudy and foggy, so we had the whole “moody skies” thing happening, but that was alright. We pulled over to do this little hike we found on AllTrails, Community Caves. Supposedly it was “scrambly…” 

We actually found the trailhead and started up. The first challenge was getting across a pretty flowy stream. We found a spot to cross and then started scrambling over a cross between a scree field and a boulder field. Broken ankles, here we come!

We didn’t. We found the trail just past the rocks and headed up – straight up a stream bed. Ha. We managed not to get our feet wet, but it was something. At the top, there were some caves, as well as a pretty cool waterfall. It was mostly a climbing area and we decided that the trail was mostly for climbers. In any case, it was pretty.

We got back down to the car, finding a different place to cross the creek without having to traverse the rock fields and moved on. 

We continued the drive and pulled over at another roadside waterfall that was super pretty, and then pulled into another parking lot to hike to Spearfish Falls.

THAT was super pretty, too! The water came straight out of the rock wall in places, and the mist and the moss was just spectacular. As we walked back to the car, we decided this place was definitely worth coming back to and spending more time searching out all the waterfalls, they were amazing!

The rest of the drive was uneventful, in and out of rain, and of course we hit Ft. Collins right at rush hour, so that last bit of the drive was kind of annoying… But. We made it home with no problems. What a great few days!

Here’s the video: