Day 19 The Road

The road map was first created soon after the invention of the automobile. Motorists were anxious to tour the country without frequently stopping for directions. I remember when maps were promotional give aways by the big oil and gas companies. Some state and local governments still give maps of their own to tourists, using them to promote the scenic wonders of the state, and perhaps enticing visitors to remain a few more days. We didn’t need a map today to get where we wanted to go. We made a right hand turn this morning onto interstate 90, drove 600 miles through South Dakota and Minnesota and stopped for the night when we crossed over the Mississippi River into Wisconsin.
We were on the road at 7:30 AM. The skies were over casts with some dark clouds mixed in with blue sky. Temperature was 64. The wind was gusting and blowing the bike around like a kite. I knew it was going to be a long day if I was going to have to muscle the 900 pound motorcycle around for 600 miles. Fortunately the sun came out after about an hour and burned the clouds off. The wind finally stopped and we had great weather the rest of the day.
I wish the roads were as good as the weather. There was too much construction going on in both South Dakota and Minnesota. I kept having second thoughts about turning around and not heading home yet. We reached La Crosse, Wisconsin and pulled into a Super 8 motel around 7:00PM.
Life is good.

Total miles: 602 Butt factor: 4

Day 18 The Rock

The sun was shining again when we woke up at 6:30. We’ve been very lucky with the weather while we’ve been riding for the past two and a half weeks. We’ve watched the weather reports on the news, it helps us to decide which way to go each day, and it seems it’s been raining everywhere in the country except over top of us. As we’ve been traveling we’ve seen huge dark clouds in the distance. The storms look right next to you but in reality are probably 50 miles away. Something you just can’t see on the east coast. We raced lightning and thunderstorms storms that were traveling along a mountain range as we rode along the valley floors. In Nebraska we saw the formation of a funnel cloud in a storm that was traveling parallel to our north. We even saw one weather phenomenon that we’ve never seen before. It appeared only a mile from us while we were in Nevada and it looked like an upside down funnel where the rain appeared to be flowing up instead of down. When I asked Tom “what was that?” He said I don’t know but I don’t like it. Let’s get out of here. When you ride you need to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. The weather gods have been good to us.
We left out of Douglas, WY this morning at 8:00 AM. It was 72 degrees and looked like it would warm quickly. Since I knew we were not riding into any elevations I decided to wear my Olympia Air Glide jacket and pants. Good choice. It stayed cool most of the morning and rose to 88 later in the afternoon.
We headed north on 58 out of Douglas. The 100 mile stretch was fast and straight. We rode past mile after mile of farmland used for raising horses, steer, goats and sheep. There were also a lot of wildlife along the route like deer and antelope. The road paralleled train tracks where we raced trains that carried coal and were as long as you could see.
When we reached the town of Gillette on interstate 90 were stopped for a quick breakfast and some gas. After a short ride on 90 we took 24 north towards the Black Hills National Forest.
We soon reached the most photographed piece of rock, the Devil’s Tower National Monument. What an impressive sight it was as we crested a hill and saw the rock for the first time. We stopped and took the one and a third mile walk around the rock as we snapped about a hundred pictures between us.
We continued north on 24 into Sturgis, SD were we then picked up interstate 90 east again to Rapid City. We followed 16 south to Mt. Rushmore. We were both a bit disappointed when we arrived and they wanted to charge a parking few even though we had purchased an annual national park pass. We decided to just drive through without parking and take some picture from some of the turnouts around the mountain. At one pull off we met the first people on the trip from Delaware. We sat for about 45 minutes and talked to the retired couple now living in Arizona. How ironic it was that we met them then because this was our last sight to see before heading east to Delaware.
We left Rushmore and headed back to 90 east. We stopped in Wall, SD for the night, home of Wall Drugs. For those who have never traveled in this area, Wall Drugs is the South of the Border of the west. There are billboards everywhere advertising the store.
Tomorrow we hope to be up early and supper slab it back east. Hoping to make it to Wisconsin by tomorrow night.
Life is good.

Total miles: 405 Butt factor: 3