When I was a little girl we moved from the Twin Cities to buy Rim Rock Lodge in Spearfish Canyon.
During our Rim Rock years we didn’t get to spend much time in town during the summers, but I remember being able to use the “short cut” through the campground to the canyon. Years ago we discovered that it is blocked off so people can’t do that anymore.
After my parents sold Rim Rock we spent our summers with our friends walking around town. We sometimes stopped at Polka Dots to get a slushy or possibly a meal on our way to the city park. The park had all of that playground equipment that would probably be deemed too dangerous today.
I can’t remember if we would ever go to the Fish Hatchery back then but a friend of my sister lived up on the bluff east of the city park and we would occasionally visit her so we could inner tube down the creek. Once I remember in junior high us staying overnight at her house and sneaking down to the park in the middle of the night; I suspect this was done many more times when I wasn’t along.
By high school cruising in someone’s car along Main and Jackson was what we did more, so my next memories are from after we were married with children. The park now had the nice wooden playscape and the hatchery got a face lift. Every time my family came back to visit my parents we would go to the Fish Hatchery and let them feed the fish. One time when my son was a toddler he fell into one of the fish ponds. Luckily then it was just a short drop into shallow water but he was soaked and I scraped up my knees pretty badly falling when I immediately ran to get him. We ended up stripping him of his wet smelly clothes and driving him back to my parents naked. He loved that.
Now when I’m back I enjoy walking the trails around the fish hatchery. I had forgotten how many there are this summer until I spend a few evenings there. I hope you enjoy them, too.