A day in the Black Hills
Alright, let me get this out of the way first — the Phillies are in the playoffs for the first time since I was in fifth grade. Yeah, that's right, Phillies=NL East champions. Fancy that.
Now on to my day.
Angela and I went for a drive into South Dakota and Black Hills National Forest for a jaunt through Spearfish Canyon. The canyon runs along a river that is fed by several creeks and is lined by towering cliffs, the ocassional waterfall, pine trees, Aspen trees and plenty of — Monty Python reference coming — SHRUBBERY!!! Seeing as how there was a winter storm warning to the west last night, it should come as no surprise that the Aspen trees (and shrubbery) were in their full fall splendor. That meant pockets of gold along with sporadic red and orange among the carpet of green.
The color brought crowds, so there wasn't a whole lot of solitude to be had, but, nonetheless we managed to have quite a good time peering at the falls, all the while having the exprience catalogued by Angela, who was armed with her trusty camera.
We came in on a popular route, off I-90, through Spearfish and south into the Hills. We left on — Frost reference — the road less travelled, hanging a right at Cheyenne Crossing and heading down a mountain with light traffic. At first it seemed like a bust, save for the excitement of three cows (I believe they were Black Angus) sauntering the road. ("I didn't know this was open range," Angela said).
As suddenly as they'd disappeared, our second batch of Aspens came and stayed with us for many, many miles. And quite a collection they was. It turns out that South Dakota Highway 85 has a remarkable number of Aspen groves, some of which were quite large, with dozens, maybe even a 100 or more trees in them. Almost all of their leaves glowed bright yellow in the sun. Best of all, the show continued into Wyoming, and we ended up getting nearly 20 or 30 extra minutes of fall splendor that is noticeably absent in our pocket of the Plains.
Through Four Corners we went, then up to Sundance, where we took a short tour of the (errr...) downtown, dowuring which we saw one unidentified genus of tree that had exploded red. Then it was back onto the Interstate and into the glare of setting sun for the last hour before getting home. What a day.
Now on to my day.
Angela and I went for a drive into South Dakota and Black Hills National Forest for a jaunt through Spearfish Canyon. The canyon runs along a river that is fed by several creeks and is lined by towering cliffs, the ocassional waterfall, pine trees, Aspen trees and plenty of — Monty Python reference coming — SHRUBBERY!!! Seeing as how there was a winter storm warning to the west last night, it should come as no surprise that the Aspen trees (and shrubbery) were in their full fall splendor. That meant pockets of gold along with sporadic red and orange among the carpet of green.
The color brought crowds, so there wasn't a whole lot of solitude to be had, but, nonetheless we managed to have quite a good time peering at the falls, all the while having the exprience catalogued by Angela, who was armed with her trusty camera.
We came in on a popular route, off I-90, through Spearfish and south into the Hills. We left on — Frost reference — the road less travelled, hanging a right at Cheyenne Crossing and heading down a mountain with light traffic. At first it seemed like a bust, save for the excitement of three cows (I believe they were Black Angus) sauntering the road. ("I didn't know this was open range," Angela said).
As suddenly as they'd disappeared, our second batch of Aspens came and stayed with us for many, many miles. And quite a collection they was. It turns out that South Dakota Highway 85 has a remarkable number of Aspen groves, some of which were quite large, with dozens, maybe even a 100 or more trees in them. Almost all of their leaves glowed bright yellow in the sun. Best of all, the show continued into Wyoming, and we ended up getting nearly 20 or 30 extra minutes of fall splendor that is noticeably absent in our pocket of the Plains.
Through Four Corners we went, then up to Sundance, where we took a short tour of the (errr...) downtown, dowuring which we saw one unidentified genus of tree that had exploded red. Then it was back onto the Interstate and into the glare of setting sun for the last hour before getting home. What a day.
posted by Pedro_in_Wyoming at 9:12 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home