29th June - Spearfish, SD

As we left Spearfish Canyon this morning we stopped to take photos of a Dancing with Wolves film site. Nothing too exciting, just a stream, but I need to re-watch the movie to work out which bit this place was in! We drove past the other campsite in the area that we’d checked out yesterday, but because there were practically no trees and it was hot, we decided to try the other one. Glad we did choose the one that was further away, much cooler! After that we continued on down the road to ‘the falls’ – Roughlock Falls. There were a few guys fishing in the stream and we did see some little fish. I wanted to go swimming in the water as it was quite hot already in the mid-morning, but I was too scared I’d get in trouble for scaring the fish away! The falls were quite pretty, but it was already so hot we didn’t stay there very long. Just long enough to take some pictures! 

Anyone recognise this from the movie?

We drove to Spearfish, which was closer than we originally thought! We found some free internet at McDonalds, as usual, and found an RV park for the next couple of nights as we had a couple of days to kill before heading to Deadwood to meet up with Neil. Will treated us to Macca’s soft serve cones as we were pretty well melting ourselves! We hadn’t had any ice cream for ages and it was delicious!! We drove out to Chris’ Campground and booked in for 3 nights. While they sorted out where we would be camping, we went to Walmart and bought some supplies (more chicken burgers!). When we got back we plugged in to power and enjoyed some air conditioning! After lunch we went for a swim in the ‘adults’ pool, which was great because it was so so hot!  There was a kids’ pool as well, that even had a water slide. We spent ages in the pool and we talked to an American guy. He travels for most of the year in a huge RV with his wife. He was telling us about how the barges go down the Mississippi, sometimes forty at a time and how to they have separate them as they go down the locks. He spends time in Minnesota with a daughter and used to be a travelling computer businessman, so he’d been to New Zealand, but not Australia. The water was amazing and it was so nice to be cool again! Then finally we started turning into prunes so it was time to get out! 

Roughlock Falls. 

We had a relaxing afternoon playing guitar (one guy asked if I could play louder, so I must be all right! J and enjoying the shade near Betsey. Will discovered that something was leaking water in the back (something to do with the water pump being on) so we pulled everything out in an effort to dry it out.  When the water pump turned on and put pressure in the pipe a small hole would gush water. That evening we watched some of Season 2 of The Goodwife – just as addictive as the first season!