Spearfish, SD

During our time in Spearfish, we stayed three nights at Spearfish City Campground. While the camper sites weren't spacious, they were level and most had trees around them. The campground bathrooms/showers were probably the nicest I've ever seen camping. Spearfish Creek ran along the campground, which neighbored Spearfish City Park and the historic D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery.

One thing I noticed about the town was that bikes were everywhere. Very cool to see. Most of our meals in Spearfish were out of our cooler, but the Motherlode post-race breakfast was hosted by Crow Peak Brewing. Being 9 a.m., they weren't serving beer, but the atmosphere was great and the reviews online I've seen are good. The breakfast was catered by Killian's Tavern, and if it's any indication of the quality of their food I'd eat there any time!

Most of my time "in Spearfish" was spent riding in the Motherlode, so I didn't see much outside of the race.  Jeff and Jacob visited the fish hatchery a few times and did some sightseeing in Spearfish Canyon as well with my in-laws while I was on the bike. I did get a nice view of this in the last 10-15 miles of the race, and we walked through the fish hatchery on our last day as we headed out of town.

The entrance

One of the fish ponds

Feeding the fish

Underwater viewing area

The grounds also included a boat that was used on Yellowstone Lake to harvest fish eggs, a train that carried them, and a museum filled with artifacts from the early days of the hatchery. One exhibit had containers that were used to transport the fish for stocking in remote areas. The buckets and baskets could be carried by horse, mule, and some by people. It was a cool place to visit.  Speaking of stocking trout in streams, here was a funny story we learned on our trip about President Coolidge's time in the Black Hills and his very successful trout fishing hobby.