Colorado Cruiser: South Dakota Ride

I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up and went for a short walk. I was very surprised at how warm it was. My bike said it was 73 degrees.

I tried taking a few low light pictures of starts, the bikes, the cabin, etc. There were too many lights on to get a real low light exposure, but the lights were too weak to really illuminate anything. Eventually I went back in and tried sleeping again. It must have worked because suddenly it was 7:30 and sun was streaming in through the blinds of the cabin.

We all woke up and began getting ready for our long anticipated day of riding the Black Hill country.

Our first stop was back in Sturgis for some breakfast and souvenirs. We rode back and forth up main street but didn't really see anywhere for breakfast. Finally we headed over to McDonalds. It always feels a bit like a cop out to hit a fast food chain on these rides. I like going to local, unique restaurants, but you can also waste allot of time trying to find one. Yelp was no help at all.

After breakfast I headed for a local grocery store to buy paper towels so I could wash my windshield. We'd used all my paper towels up yesterday on the accident. I also wanted to look for a towel. I still can't believe it never occurred to me that I'd need a towel while staying at a campground. Luckily the grocery store had a big display with sunscreen, glasses, umbrellas, and beach towels. I got everything I needed without having to drive to a Walmart.

I met back up with the Seans at t-shirt shop. We bought some kids T's for $5 each, then adult T's at 3 for $30. All of the T shirts were dated and on sale.

The next stop was the Harley Davidson store. They had a rack of t-shirts on sale for about $20 (which is cheap for a harley shirt). I picked up a few and we headed on our way.

Our first road was Vanocker Canyon road which lead straight South out of Sturgis. The temperature in Sturgis was already up to 78 degrees, but it cooled over very quickly once we were into the woods. The road wound around through the canyon. It was a really nice ride and reminded me allot of riding the Texas Hill Country. There weren't any mountains or towering bluffs, just gentle hills and the occasional canyon wall (but not too high). It was a very relaxing ride with allot of gentle turns and twists. It was almost a shock to come to the end where the road merged with Nemo road. Please... no jokes about finding Nemo.

We turned right onto Nemo road. I think I'd originally planned to go left, but there are so many great roads around here we could have turned anywhere and had a great right. We rode North on Nemo road and eventually came to highway 385, the main North/South highway through the Black Hills. We turned South which would take us down towards Mount Rushmore.

We had to stop a couple of times to re-select GPS destinations because I hadn't programmed in the places. Taking my Nuvi GPS was a last minute decision, and I hadn't taken the time to lookup all of the places we wanted to see and marked them in favorites. So I programmed it on the side of the road by typing in partial names and picking from the list of things found. You'd be amazed at how many places pop up on the GPS when you type in "Mt Rushmore". You'd think it was a big deal around here.

Anyway, we eventually made our way to the town of Keystone, and from there, up the hill to Mt Rushmore. It cost $10 per bike for parking. We paid it and went to the top of the parking garage. I took a group photo, then we headed in to the the famous sculpture.

I started to take a self portrait with Mt Rushmore behind me and got photo bombed by both Seans. I posted the resultant pic on facebook and got quite a few comments and likes.

we walked up to the railing and took a few photos of the monument. I tried to look for someone to take a group photo of us but really didn't see anyone I wanted to hand my camera to. That's very odd because usually it's easy to find someone. After a few minutes of looking we walked down the stairs to the museum. We spent quite a while reading about the construction of the monument and the changes that were made over its construction.

After the museum, we went up stairs to the gift shop and bought a few trinkets.

By now it was well after noon and we were getting hungry. We rode the bikes down the hill to Keystone and spotted the Grizzly Creek Diner. Sean and Sean got burgers and I got fish tacos. It was ok.

After lunch we gassed up and rode part way up the hill to Hwy 14A, otherwise known as Iron Mountain Road. This has to be the most impressive stretch of road I've ever ridden. It was very curvy, had beautiful vistas all around, interesting one lane tunnels, and 360 degree corkscrew bridges that were a blast to ride.

Once again we saw allot of classic cars, and once again they kept breaking down. These weren't the mid 50s Chevy's from yesterday, but they were classics, and obviously in groups together. Every time one would break down, people would bail out and start directing traffic to let others get past on the narrow winding roads. We leap frogged with one group when we'd pass them, then stop to take pictures and they'd pass us, then we'd pass them again.

Regrettably we came to the end of Iron Mountain Road. I could have turned right back and ridden it again, but it would have taken too much time and we'd have missed the other roads we wanted to ride.

We turned on to Custer road heading West and rode toward Custer State Park. At the entrance, the ranger told us that it was free to ride across the park, so we headed in. The road had been chip sealed recently so we had to go slow. The dust rose and billowed around every time a car would come speeding the other direction. We widened the gap to prevent rocks from being thrown into each other. It wasn't an enjoyable ride. But it wasn't long either. We reached the bottom of Needles Highway and turned North. We met another ranger who explained that the Needles highway wasn't a part of "riding through" the park. So we paid our $5 which was well worth it to get off of Custer road and the chipseal.

Needles Highway wasn't as good as Iron Mountain Road, but it was good. It wound up through the hills and over a pass. We stopped at a scenic overlook and saw the "Needles" on a distant hilltop. At least they looked like needles. They looked like large hoodoos like you see in Bryce Canyon.

We continued up the highway toward some one lane tunnels. I took a few pictures going through the tunnels, but there was so much loose dirt on the road that I had to drop the camera and hold on with both hands to keep the bike going straight. The tunnel really looked like a needle, so maybe that's where the road got its name.

We learned in church about the Bible saying "It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven". The needle refers to the very small entry ways into cities. Camels would have to lay down and crawl through the entry ways on their stomachs to enter. These tunnels were so small that maybe they were "Needles".

On the far side of the tunnel was a narrow winding road going through the hoodoos with people standing all over the place. I'm sure people were standing there while friends rode back and forth through the tunnel trying to get pictures. It looked like a real mess and we were just glad to get out of the area without accidentally killing someone. From the tunnel, it wasn't far to the end of the highway. We pulled over and I programmed in the Crazy Horse Memorial as our next destination.

The GPS took us South into the town of Custer where we turned West for a short distance, then back North. The Crazy Horse memorial wasn't far up the highway. We had only planned on taking pictures from the highway because they charge so much to go up. But they had recently lowered the cost to $5.00 so we paid up and rode to the visitor's center.

The building was huge. All of the interior looked like raw knotty pine boards. We watched the movie and walked around looking at all of the art and displays. I wandered into the snack bar to get some ice cream and promptly dropped a big chunk on my shirt. I look GOOD in every I eat.

After the museum we headed North. We had decided to stop by the classic car show in Deadwood for dinner. The sun was setting again, so we slowed down to watch for animals. The road was great, but we'd been on great roads all day and were more interested in food.

Once we arrived in Deadwood we rode slowly through town and spotted a parking lot with cars pulling out. We zipped in and grabbed a couple of free parking spots, then walked a pretty good distance up and around to get to main street.

The road was packed with with people. We tried a couple of restaurants, but both told us it would be 90 minutes or more to be served. So we kept walking and eventually came to a large open are with vendor tents around the edges. One of the tents was selling Pulled Pork, Burgers, and Brats for $5.00. We were tired and hungry and grateful to find anything. We took our hard won spoils and propped them up on a big power transformer and listened to the Jazz band playing and gabbed with a local about the show and about the Sturgis Rally.

We stayed for nearly an hour before we decided to go look at more cars. Walking back up the street was a real chore. The whole road was now packed with people sitting on camp chairs and listening to the organizers spew about the rules and the upcoming events for judging. I think that eventually there would be another jazz band. We pushed and pushed and finally reached a place to cross the road. Just as we crossed, we spotted a couple of Paramedics. One of them was a paramedic from yesterday's crash. He told us that the older gentleman had been moved to Rapid City but he knew no more than that. We chatted a bit, then continued on.

We saw a whole lot of cool cars. Fully restored classics to completely tricked out button and tucked cars, and lot of hot rods. By the time we'd walked to the end of the lot and back, it was time to leave. We walked back to our bikes and headed back toward Sturgis.

Back at the campground we all changed and headed down to the hot tub. I had so much sun screen on that I showered before I got in. The water and bubbles felt great and eased some of the tension from the long ride.

Vanocker Canyon Road