AK1 Day 12

MS Day 12 – 15 Jun 12, Friday

Gillette, Wyoming to Mitchell, South Dakota

Mileage – 452

WX – sunny and very hot with strong cross wind from the right

States – Wyoming, South Dakota

I-90, Hwy 14, Hwy 24 Devils Tower, Hwy 111, I-90, Hwy 85 Deadwood, Hwy 14 Sturgis, I-90

Note 1: The ride from Gillette to Devils Tower was short and a good ride after we got off I-90 and onto the back roads. When you finally see Devils Tower as you come over one of the many hills it is an amazing sight or at least it was for me because I’ve always wanted to see it ever since the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” We rode up to the entrance to the park and got the required HOG pictures. This is one of the places I’ll take Liz and do a lot more exploring.

Note 2: We then headed toward South Dakota on I-90 and turned off onto Hwy 85 to ride through Deadwood, SD. If you ever saw the HBO series “Deadwood” you would want to see this town. We had hoped to go through the center of town but they had it closed off for construction in preparation for the upcoming tourist season. Seems to be a constant theme; i.e. CLOSED. Still we saw what we wanted and headed for Sturgis.

Note 3: From Deadwood we rode direct to Sturgis, SD. This is the Mecca for motorcycles due to the annual rally. It is definitely different from being in Sturgis during the rally but I wanted to see it for the first time while I could actually ride my bike and not fight crowds.

Note 4: We had planned to go to Mount Rushmore from Sturgis but we decided to skip that side trip and head straight to Rapid City HD dealer so Jim could get his oil changed for the warranty. We knew we had miles to make across South Dakota to try and reach Sioux Falls, SD today. We spent 3 hours at the Rapid City HD shop so got a late start for Sioux Falls.

Note 5: This was one of the most miserable parts of the trip. It was extremely hot and the wind was gusting extremely hard from the right the whole way. I’ve ridden this bike in strong cross winds but this was the worst. It was like being on a bucking horse the way the bike would jump between wind gusts and while passing semi-trucks. Several times I thought I was going to be sucked under a semi-truck’s trailer as it blocked the wind then I’d be blasted by the wind and the truck’s bow wave as I came past the cab. We finally decided to give up just short of Sioux Falls at a town called Mitchell, SD. We both were ready to get off the bikes and have a beer after that run across SD.