{Spearfish Snowmobile Weekend}

One word {AMAZING!}

The weekend was a success minus the snow storm on the way home yesterday (4-8 inches in the hills).

{Friday}

We woke up to 3 inches of snow on the ground… GREAT. Just what we needed. George looked at the roads through the cameras online and interstate 90 was awful. I got up and decided to go to the gym to start out my day off. I got all the way to the gym with out the roads plowed or sidewalks shoveled, walked into the gym and realized… no gym shoes. I was so ticked at the snow and us maybe having to cancel that I forgot my dang shoes. I jumped back in the jeep and went home to see George plowing the driveway. I seriously didn’t even want to go back out and felt guilty so I grabbed a shovel and did the walk way, steps, and porch. When I got in George and I talked and decided to go but were going to wait until around noon to make sure the roads we clear. Right about noon we headed out the door, dropped off Winston at his “Stay-cation”, got Micky D’s, and hit the road. Now only 4.5 hours to drive. :/
The roads weren’t too bad, its just that the drive takes forever to get to the west. Spearfish is located just a few miles short of the Wyoming boarder. Once we hit the town we had to drive another 20 minutes into Spearfish Canyon where the Lodge was located.

We arrived to the Lodge around 4:30. Really neat to see all the snowmobiles lined up outside in the parking lot. The lodge is really pretty and has Canyons surrounding it. My favorite part = no cell service! George was freaking out. :) Once we got checked in we realized we were in a Suite! The “Custer Suite”. Here is what is looked like.

Dakota the bear was there to Welcome us!

 

Our own gas fire place, nice a cozy!

Large Bathroom (George called me a chinamin for taking all these pictures)

Our King size bed

View from our Window. Beautiful!

Once we got settled in a bit I lined up all of our gift cards. If you didn’t read my post from before; My parents bought us this stay so it includes 2 nights, 1 full day snowmobiling, 1 dinner, 1 breakfast, 1 cocktail

Our cards to use as we went through the days

Outside of the Lodge:

 

Friday night after George caught up on some Work we headed over to the Latchstring restaurant located across the street. They had well lit paths to walk over. It was pretty empty besides another couple but it was still early, about 6pm.

 

 

This fireplace is almost exactly like ours!

The only difference is it is made of River Rock and

ours is made from a type of large stone.

At dinner I decided to go all out and have the Special which was a Bison Sirloin that was marinated in a teriyaki sauce, mash tators, and carrots. MMM-mmmmm! George got the beef sirloin. I seriously wish I had taken a picture because when she brought mine out is was HUGH! It had to have been between 10-12oz. I only ate about half. After dinner we got changed and went to the hot tubs located on the second floor deck. I haven’t been in a hot tub outside since high school and George never has. It was about 20 degrees outside so the deck was all iced up. We were cracking up trying to get the cover off of it while our toes were freezing off! It was nice at relaxing and a great way to start the weekend. After the hot tubs we changed for bed and passed out at 9pm… don’t judge us we were still on central time so really it was 10 pm! :)

In the morning we woke up at 6:30am got all our layers on.

• Under amour shirt
• Under amour pants
• Fleece sweatshirt
• jeans
• socks
• boots

We headed over to breakfast at the Latchstring Restaurant to use up our breakfast coupons. I had over easy eggs, breakfast potatoes, and sausage links. George had Scrambled eggs, Potatoes, and bacon. It was super yummy again! Around 8:15 we got the rest of our gear on:

• Take off jeans put on Snow pants
• gloves
• hat
• grab helmet
• grab goggles
• grab key card, debit card, and snowmobile gift cards.

We went over the the garage to rent our snowmobiles and what did I forget…. my license! duh! After we filled out all of the paper work the guy showed us how to use them. They are just like our 4-wheeler so I was less nervous. They also had heated handles! Super useful!

We were on the trails by 8:30! At first we weren’t really sure where to go so we just went. But then George stopped at a site that said “Dancing with Wolves site” so we had to get pictures!

We think that this part was filmed at the very end when the Native Americans retreat to their Winter camp site. We want to watch the movie again to see if we can pick out the part of the movie, but I’m pretty sure its that part.

George giving the thumbs up!

I’m good to go too! Don’t you love the pink helmet, goggles, and gloves!

Gotta let those boys know that it’s not all guys out here doing this!

We drove for another 30 minutes or so and came up to a wide open field where there was a cottage. No electricity! 

 

After that we decided to hit trail 3b that went across the Wyoming boarder and up to a look out peak. It was super windy but what a view!

Looking out into Wyoming

George says “Hi!”

I LOVE my iPhone! Especially since you can push the button that turns the

 camera to the front so you can view it!

 

We went into that little tower to get warm and sure enough we here “ring ring ring”…. “Beep Beep Beep”… “Tweet tweet tweet”! Our phones were going nuts because we finally got service! We ended up staying put for 20 minutes so George could return some phone calls. We also got the map out to see where we wanted to head next. It was about 10:40 at that time so we wanted to take the long way to the “Trailhead Lodge” where the snowmobile guide told us to stop for lunch. We decided to take trail 3 all the way South then cut over to Trail 2 east then 2s. (I know this makes no sense but if you ever go you’ll know!) The trails were marked very well, every 50 feet there was a diamond to let you know you were still on the trail and not private land. Then every 200ft was the same diamond but with the Trail number on it. At every juncture they also had a post with a map on it with a helpful arrow saying “you are here”. We only got turned around once.

May favorite part of the entire day was when George and I were on a back trail that was surrounded by trees. He was in front of me by 30 feet and out of the corner of my eye to the left I see a small coyotes hauling ass towards the trail. All the sudden it was running next to George, he slowed down a bit then decided to challenge it so he was right up behind it. I was secretly hoping he wouldn’t hit it, and he didn’t he booked it around and all the sudden I was next to the little guy. He was running at least 40 MPH! It felt like he was with us for a while although I’m sure it was only 20 seconds or so. I sped up and left him in the dust. Seriously coolest thing ever! My name shall be “Snowmobiling with Wolves”. A little while later we hit the Wyoming boarder again, this time it was a photo opt!

 

Ha- we kept bumping helmets so I finally said “forget it!”

At about 1:30 we finally got to Trailhead Lodge! I was super hungry at this point. This place was packed! We had to cross the 2 line hwy to get to the parking lot, and it was nothing like I had every seen. Every vehicle in the lot was a snowmobile! There was not one person there eating lunch that hadn’t driven in from off the trails! Super neat!

This was taken after lots of people headed back out.

 I didn’t want to look like a Dork taking pictures of everything.

Everyone filling up with Gas before they head back out

After my hotdog and Georges Burger we headed back out on the trails. My favorite Trail of the day was the one on the way back to our Lodge. Trail head 4 north. At first there were tons of flat open fields. George got his snowmobile up to 70mph! What a loon! I got to about 65mph and then thoughts of my body flying through the air brought me back to reality so I slowed to 55. Towards the end of the trail we we down by a stream with nothing but canyon surrounding us. We had to stop and take more pictures.

 

We we got back it was almost 3pm. Our bodies were completely sore. My arms, knees, and thighs were throbbing so we decided to return the Snowmobiles and jump in the hot tubs before dinner. Such a great idea! It loosened up my muscles after all the bouncing around and stiffness of sitting all day. We decided to get showers and head into Spearfish for dinner. It had started to rain the the roads were a little icy on the way back to the Lodge. We started to get a little worried as well because the Weather station was calling for 4-8 inches of snow in Rapid city! Yikes! We went out to the Lounge to people watch and use our cocktail cards then went back to the room watched a little TV and went to bed.

Wake up time was 5:30am!

George was up and ready to hit the road so I followed suit and brushed my teeth, packed up our stuff and headed out. We open the door to the parking lot to see 4 inches on the ground and snow falling at a rapid rate! They weren’t lying!

George shoveled the snow off the truck while I took pictures.

Pretty! but not when were going to be driving!

 

The scariest part was driving the 20 minutes back through the canyon to get to the I-90. Luckily a snow plow did one side of the road and no one was out driving yet. We hit snow the entire 4.5 hours home but made great timing! When we left the GPS said Estimate arrival time of 12:10 - we got to the kennel to pick up Winston at 1 o’clock! Just in time to get changed and hit the gym while the Ravens were on.

It really was an amazing trip and we enjoyed it thoroughly. I was talking to George about the trip and about how at one point while I was riding I realized I’m not ready to have kids yet. I had baby fever there for a little and how could you not when everyone around you has these precious little ones in their lives. How could we have done this trip with a baby? I get worried and miss my dog after 3 hours so how could I leave a baby to go do these things. We’re just not there yet and someday we will be but right now we still have a lot of things to check off of our list including this house that were supposed to be selling. I think George and I are def. ready to prioritize making trips like this one and enjoying being a married couple for a little while longer. But.... No too long of course! ;)

Hope you enjoyed reading about our trip!