Ride Report: 11 Day - Black Hills, Beartooth, Yellowstone, Colorado Loop
Well, another trip in the books. We rode 3,625 miles on this one and went to places we had not been before, namely the Black Hills of South Dakota. We left on Thursday, 8/27 and returned home on Sunday, 9/6. We had a great ride without any problems.
My son, Mark, and I were the only bikes on this trip. From my house in Arlington, TX to Deadwood, SD is 1,073 miles, so we divided it into two days. Our wives flew to Rapid City to ride the Black Hills with us and then flew home after a couple of days while we continued on our trip. We arrived in Deadwood on Friday, 8/28 and stayed until Monday, 8/31. On Saturday, we just rode over to Sturgis which is only about 15 miles. It was a rest day after two grueling, boring days of riding the flat lands of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.
To bore you as much as I can, I'll recap each day in this post. I'll have to do it over a few days because I have over 500 pics to sort through. I obviously can't include them all here, but I'll try to show the highlights.
Day 1, Home (Arlington, TX) to Colby, KS - 608 miles
This is our route for the day:
We left my house at 5:30AM while it was still dark. This is just after sunrise on Hwy. 287 about 50 miles or so into the trip. Some of these photos will look like the camera isn't level because my GoPro is mounted on the fairing which is slanted slightly.
This was a gas stop just before Vernon, TX. It's only 158 miles from home, but I planned out our gas stops on Google Maps because some of the small towns on our route don't have gas stations. I didn't want to chance running out of gas, I've done that before and it's no fun! Plus we wanted a snack since we didn't have breakfast before we left.
The bridge that crosses the Red River into Oklahoma. Now it feels like the trip is really starting, we're out of Texas.
I'm including one representative photo of what it looked like the entire day. There's not much variation in the scenery in this part of the country. In it's own way, it's pretty amazing. It just goes on and on forever it seems.
Here's a couple of shots of old Dodge City.
Just west of Dodge City are the wagon wheel ruts still visible from the days of the Santa Fe Trail. Pretty amazing they're still there after all these years.
A final gas stop in Garden City Kansas. We needed a bottle of water again as it was pretty hot now. No more pics for the day. I had a cooler on my back seat which had some ice cold beverages in it. I wanted to try one out, but we still have about 100 miles to go.
It was a long, hot, boring ride today. When we got to Colby and checked in our motel, I tried 3-4 of those beverages I mentioned. Pretty tasty. We walked over to Montana Mike's Steakhouse for dinner and tried a couple of their beverages also. We went to bed fairly early because we had another long ride tomorrow.
This is another long, hot and boring ride. I didn't take very many pictures as we were anxious to get there.
Our route for the day.
Most of the ride looked like this.
Believe it or not, but this is in Nebraska. All of a sudden there were real trees and a few hills. It only lasted about 5 miles though.
Then we finally hit South Dakota and had a lot of this.
The Black Hills are finally coming into view. It's finally getting interesting.
Hwy. 385 passes through Wind Cave National Park. There wasn't an entrance fee which surprised me. We saw plenty of buffalo which is the reason the speed limit is only 45mph.
A random shot of the hills. This was nice riding for a change.
We took time to stop at the Crazy Horse Memorial south of Hill City. Pretty impressive, but according to how long they've been working on it, I doubt they'll ever finish.
That's all the pics for the day. We were ready to get to Deadwood and relax. Deadwood was only another 60 miles or so. The wives arrived the day before so we didn't have to mess with checking into the motel. Went straight to the shower and then walked around downtown Deadwood.
< It was a rest day after two grueling, boring days of the flat lands of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. >
I was thinking the only thing wrong on the route was not cutting across the corner of NM to catch I-25 out of Raton, NM. and enjoy the mountains on the way up.
It is only about 100 miles longer that way and lots to look at.. I did it that way about 6 yrs ago going up..
< It was a rest day after two grueling, boring days of the flat lands of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. >
I was thinking the only thing wrong on the route was not cutting across the corner of NM to catch I-25 out of Raton, NM. and enjoy the mountains on the way up.
It is only about 100 miles longer that way and lots to look at.. I did it that way about 6 yrs ago going up..
Griz
We considered that route, but we both despise Interstate riding.
As I said earlier, today we took it easy. We rode over to Sturgis to look around and pick up a souvenir or two. The town was pretty quiet, although there were several motorcycles still around.
This was our route for the day.
All of us in front of the Harley store. Me, my wife Jamie, Lynette and Mark. (Damn, I'm fat)
A look down Main St. A little different than during the rally.
A Polaris Slingshot. The only one I've seen.
The Knuckle Saloon. A little more peaceful than during the rally. This is a large place, it spans the whole block.
Here's what Main St. looked like during the rally.
The sculpture at the Full Throttle Saloon. Man, it's hard to believe it doesn't exist anymore. I'm sure they'll rebuild, but it will be nearly impossible to duplicate. You could tell that it had been built piecemeal over the years. If you haven't heard, you can read about it here.
The front of the building. This place was huge. I'm sure that during the rally there are tens of thousands of people there at one time.
This is Emmitt, the Full Throttle mascot. I'm glad he survived. When we were there he came walking through the store straight to the water cooler fan and just stood there. He wouldn't let anyone move him.
This is an old railroad bridge in the back. Hopefully it survived so it can be reused. I know it had a wooden deck, so it will have to be replaced.
This is Wild Bill Hickok in the No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood. They do a skit 2-3 times a day to reenact his assassination. They ask for volunteers to play the other card players and the bartender. Lynette, my daughter-in-law volunteered me. I had to play the bartender.
That's it for the day. We spent the rest of the day just walking around Deadwood taking in the sites. It was really just a rest day.
Tomorrow we will see Mt. Rushmore, ride Iron Mountain Road, the Custer Wildlife Loop and Needles Highway.
Today we rode the major road attractions of the Black Hills except for Spearfish Canyon which we will do tomorrow. We rode the back way to Rapid City through Nemo. Then on to Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain road, the Wildlife Loop through Custer State Park and finally Needles Highway before returning to Deadwood. This would have been an even better ride if it hadn't been so hot. It reached close to 100 degrees in mid afternoon, very uncomfortable.
Anyway, it was some fantastic scenery. I'll include just a few of the pics we took. Way too many to include all.
This was our route for the day.
Before we left on this trip I checked the Black Hills HD website which said they were opened on Sunday. Well when we got there, they were closed. Too bad, it's a very large dealership and I would have liked to see it.
Next stop was Mount Rushmore. Each state has a flag there with a plaque stating its entry into the US and which number it was.
I have to include the one for Texas.
We back tracked to Keystone where we had lunch.
I have several shots along Iron Mountain road, this is one of them.
We came around a corner just before entering Custer Park and saw this. There were a bunch of them very close to the road.
This guy was right on the edge of the road. He looked like if he wanted to, he could take us out.
We made it past him. He was a big one.
Lynette caught a shot of some antelope along the road.
I didn't expect to see wild donkeys, but they were there.
We're now on the Needles Hwy. Lynette got a picture of me and Jamie going around a bend.
Going through one of several tunnels along the way.
I suppose this is the reason it's named Needles Highway.
Me and Jamie going through another tunnel.
One more tunnel.
That was it for the day. We were back on Hwy 385 and headed to Deadwood. Our wives fly back to DFW tomorrow and Mark and I will continue over to Montana and Wyoming.
Today the wives fly home and Mark and I continue the trip. We'll end up in Sheridan, WY via Spearfish Canyon and the Devil's Tower.
Here's our route for the day.
We head out of Deadwood toward Lead, then down to Cheyenne Crossing for the beginning on the Spearfish Canyon. It's hard to read in the photo, but the sign above the street says "Lead".
Passing through downtown Lead.
This is the southern beginning of Spearfish Canyon. This is a very pretty ride that I highly recommend.
A little further up the road.
Getting deeper into the canyon.
More of the canyon.
This is just north of Spearfish and the terrain begins to flatten out. (Ignore the smashed bug on the top left of my lens)
Not much further and we enter the sixth state of our trip.
Devil's Tower is visible in the distance of this photo.
We didn't enter the park but just stopped along the side of the road. That's one massive rock.
A little closer look.
After passing Devil's Tower it wasn't long before we hit I-90. We had to ride about 30 miles on it before we got off at Gillette.
Heading north out of Gillette on US-14/16. We had to ride a little over 100 miles of this. (Still better than the Interstate)
Downtown Sheridan. We checked in the motel, had a few beers and then walked down the street to eat at Sanford's Grub Pub and Brewery. That's it on the corner with the maroon awning.
That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll ride through the Bighorn Mountains to Cody, the Chief Joseph Hwy and then Beartooth Pass to Red Lodge.
09-09-2015, 08:22 AM
Ride Report: 11 Day - Black Hills, Beartooth, Yellowstone, Colorado Loop
