SD around 4pm on Sunday. Truck/Trailer Brian was sitting under the small covered patio out front, patiently awaiting our arrival on bikes. He had the customary cold rocky mountains waiting for us as we have come to expect. And we proceeded to have a few. When I was ready to starting punching out words on this You probably have noticed I’m a bit late writing this stupid blog. We got into the Days Inn in Spearfish keyboard, they announced it was time to go to dinner. Writing would have to wait.
We are currently sitting at the Millstone Family restaurant (it’s now Monday 7/11/2022; 9:10 am local time) having breakfast. But first, lets backtrack and get caught up.
We had dinner Saturday night downtown Dickinson ND. Nice dinner, a couple steaks a couple adult beverages. Not much happened, pretty much turned in, once Ski Doo got the truck backed in to the parking spot, mostly damage free.
Sunday morning, we were on the road by around 9am local time and headed to the Painted Canyon. Pretty ride and crazy awesome views. Finally. We have had our fill of flat farm land for miles and miles and miles and miles. We then rode to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park. There is a 24 mile road into the park to traverse, with extraordinary views of the rolling and rocky landscape. And lots of nature and wildlife abound. Our first stop was to see the prairie dogs. Cute, but we are here to see buffalo! We meandered thru the twisted road and rocky points with amazing views. Quite beautiful, and glad we took the time to drive thru.
About 15 miles in, and we got our buffalo. A whole herd. When we passed them they were in the meadows, and we stopped and took our obligatory pictures. When we turned around for our departure, they had ventured out of the meadow and were now crossing the road and IN the road. We wanted to see buffalo, we saw buffalo. We slow rolled by them, so as not to have them charge us, as there were calves mixed in with the full growns. They were about 6 feet away from us as we slow rolled by, quite exhilarating to say the least. On our way out of Medora, we stopped at the Boots Saloon for a lunch stop and T-Shirt/sticker purchase.
Sight seeing was over, time to head south and get into a new state. We are over North Dakota. We stopped for lunch at the Old #3 Bar for a rest and refreshment, and back on the road south to Spearfish S Dakota.
When we arrived, the temps had climbed to 93 degrees. It was warm and the cold refreshments Brian had waiting for us on the tailgate were very quenching. We gathered under the covered patio, and swilled a few cold ones. When I was finally ready to go to work on this stupid blog, they announced that it was dinner time. Ok, the blog can wait.
We went to Deadwood SD for dinner and to check out the town. I don’t know the name of the restaurant we went to, but there was a casino on the main floor, and the restaurant was upstairs. There was about an hour wait for our table, so Ski Doo and Monkey wiled away the time playing black jack, I played the video slots, and Hedgehog and Brian sat at a table near the bar, quenching their thirst.
Dinner was good, steaks and ribs were served, and about the time we arrived back to the Days INN, a heavy storm was rolling in. Big lightning bolts were crashing around us, and by the time we hit the entrance doors, the rain came pouring down. Night night for our crew.
Right now we are sitting at Black Hills Harley Davidson. Hedgehog is attempting to get some service done on his Pan America, I am typing away, and Terry, the former owner of the dealership is waiting for me to put this keyboard away so he can be our tour guide for a local ride today.
I’ll make this a 2 day report when we get in tonight, and our overnight location is determined. I believe we are going to do a 2 night layover here in the area, so we can explore the local area. Stay tuned, subject to change.
Bye for now, Stick.
Ok, it’s now a 3 day report. It’s currently Tuesday July 12, 2022, approximately 5pm local time. We just returned from a 200 mile day ride where we took in, I think, ALL the sights. I am sitting in the “Cheers” hotel bar, while my riding partners are all upstairs either in the showers, or napping. But, oh no, not me.
So, yesterday we left the Black Hills Harley dealership that our tour guide, Terry Rymer, previously had owned, before retiring from the grind after 35 years. We left Hedgehog at the dealership to have his bike looked at. His radiator hose had begun collapsing near the exhaust pipe, and we wanted to see what could be done.
We ride began with the Iron Mountain road, I’m working from memory but something like 300 turns in 17 miles. Awesome views of Mt Rushmore, and a couple of one lane stone tunnels. It was an awesome ride and many photos along the way (you are just going to have to wait for photos, and I will do a photo day soon, I have a lot or words to type and I am not taking time tonight to load photos, deal with it.)
After Iron Mountain, we went around the back of Mt Rushmore, checked out a couple lakes and I just can’t say it enough, but an awesome ride with twisty roads that went up down and around.
Around 4pm, Terry split off and headed for home. He was gracious enough to invite us over later for some ribeyes cooked on the grille! We headed back to the dealership to get Hedgehog, I guess they replaced the radiator cap to fix his problem, but it took all day to get it into service due to a back log of service work and short fall of mechanics due to Covid. We arrived to find Hedgehog with his bike strapped down in the trailer, and sipping a cold one. We joined him in having a cold one, as we only had about 4 miles to get to our hotel. We sipped cold ones, and Brian was in the store checking out T-shirts. When Brian came out with his new threads, we suited up to get ready to head to Terry’s place, about 15 minutes away by truck.
Appartently, we weren’t quick enough getting our bags unpacked and having our customary cold by the truck after hotel arrival. Terry began texting Monkey around 6:15 wanting to know where we were at… I cleaned that up dramatically for what the text actually said.
We got to Terry’s place, and he had 5 beautiful ribeyes on one of his two Big Green Eggs just a smoking away. The aroma was delicious, and the blue tooth speaker was playing Lynnard Skynnard on the pandora app. We gathered around on the covered patio, had adult beverages and great conversation.
By about 9:30pm, we decided that Terry had probably had enough us for a day, and we headed to our beds back at the hotel. However, this Cheers bar sucked us all in for a night cap, and we wound up sitting here until around midnight!
This morning we were to meet Terry at his house again, around 9am, for a day ride on the roads that he is intimately familiar with. What a day he had planned for us. We started on the Nemo highway, and then headed for the Buckhorn Bar & Restaurant just inside Wyoming. After we got past Leads, and old gold mining town we had a blast on the roads that were up and down, and around the hills/mountains, twisting and turning , and twisting the throttle too. It was an exhilarating ride for sure.
After a Mt Dew break, some jerky and crackers & cheese to munch on, we departed the Buckhorn and headed for Rochford where we had a short break, and the boys sipped a cold one in the shade, on the side of the building in the provided plastic patio chairs.
Departing Rochford we headed down some dirt/gravel roads towards the Sugar Shack. We had lunch of fine hamburgers and Reubens, and then headed down the dirt/gravel road across from the road side restaurant and headed for Sturgis.
We blasted thru Sturgis and went directly to the Full Throttle Saloon on the other side of town. The TV show does not do justice to the sprawling and eclectic facility. While walking around, we saw Jesse Dupree and he was gracious enough to humor us with a photo op. We got our obligatory sticker and shot glass, and it was time to head to the ranch, or hotel I should say. The odometers said we did 200 miles today, on the button.
We are meeting Terry at Murphy’s in downtown Rapid City so we can treat him to a nice dinner for his graciousness in escorting our sorry souls around S Dakota. Terry, if you are reading this, a sincere THANK YOU from all of us, your tour was absolutely fabulous and I don’t think we missed a thing to see. Your hospitality towards us was most appreciated, and we owe you one, my friend.
Ok, I’ve got about 45 minutes before we depart for dinner. We have had a great 2 days in S Dakota, and it is time for us to get into a new state. Tomorrow, we head to Wyoming… where? We are not sure yet, TBD and subject to change.
We have some great pictures you should check out. But it won’t be today. I will probably have a day where I just upload pictures, you will have to wait until then.
Bye for now,
Stick