August 13th
07:30-17:05
Rapid City SD to Bald Mountain WY
316 Miles
I packed up my gear and turned in the key. I asked about a breakfast place and was pointed to a Perkins Restaurant just down the road. I stopped in there and grabbed breakfast. Kind of a Denny’s sort of place.
Once done, I hit Rt 44 out of town and headed for Johnson Siding. The riding was pretty interesting if hot. I bypassed Silver City and headed north on 385 to Deadwood. The directions to Rt 14A were interesting and I headed up to Lead instead of Sturgis. I turned around and headed back east and to Rt 90.
I wandered down the main Sturgis road and didn’t see anything particularly interesting so I turned around and headed out of town and towards Wyoming. I had seen on the map that I was heading towards Devil’s Tower and decided to make the right on 111 in Wyoming and head over to the tower.
On the way over I got behind a group of 6 bikers. Out of respect I kept back but as we slowly rolled down towards the monument I got a bit annoyed and when I got a good spot to pass I bailed. With that I realized that a group of more than 3 bikers is much like an motor home. Large and slow and difficult to pass. Unfortunately it’s hard to pass a group since I don’t want to get myself stuck in the group and interfere with their riding style. Plus they don’t know how I ride.
So a ways down the road when I first saw Devil’s Tower I was surprised at its size. It’s much taller than I thought and really sticks out from a distance. I was thinking more of a fang than a tower.
The bikers had just gone by when I got my picture and put the camera away so I followed them some more and was able to pass them again.
When I got to the turn-off there was a small store on the corner. I stopped to get a shot and some gas but there wasn’t anyone around. I hopped on the bike and made the right turn into the access road and found a larger store and the biker group stopped there. I greeted them, checked out the store and snagged a couple of hot dogs for lunch. I hopped on the bike again and headed up to the park.
Again there were hundreds of prarie dogs that people had stopped to take pictures of. I kept going up to the tower and got off to check out the info desk and read about the climbers. I hadn’t realized people could not only climb the tower but do it pretty regularly. There’s a comment about not doing it in July but a different site had complaints and basically said that it’s our right to climb whenever we want.
On my way out I passed the biker group and waved. I got a wave and two head turns. I guess I pissed them off when I passed them twice 😉
I pulled out of the park and headed back to the main road and Sheridan. The ride north was pretty damned hot. I made an attempt to drive basically non-stop to Sheridan, feeling that I was stopping too many times and should consolidate my stops (pee, get soda, get gas). When I pulled into Sheridan I found an A&W and pulled in for a break. The sign at the bank said it was 106 degrees.
After refreshments I hopped on the bike and headed for Rt 14. I’d been seeing signs for a while saying I should take Rt 16 for a nicer ride, less twistys and a safer ride to Grand Teton’s and Yellowstone. Of course I like twistys and wanted to visit The Medicine Wheel so I had to ride on Rt 14.
I made the left and off I went.
The ride up the Bighorn Mountains got cool pretty fast. At the split for 14A and 14 I took the alternate route and stopped at a lodge. I picked up a soda and looked around. They didn’t have an ATM and I was down to 10 bucks. I hoped that camping here wasn’t going to cost more than 10.
I checked out the jewelry seeing something that I liked but didn’t know if Rita would like it. Since it was almost $200 I decided that if I got it for her and she didn’t like it, I’d be yelled at 😉 so I didn’t get it.
I headed up Rt 14A and finally stopped at the foot of Bald Mountain at a camping spot. I set up my tent breathing heavily due to the height, paid the $10 (woo-hoo) and got ready for bed. Unfortunately there were three kids playing in the woods. I was reading and looking out of the tent at them running by. Eventually they said “how long as the bike been there”. I guess they just realized I was camped there. They seemed a little considerate since they ran off towards their camping area.
The place was fenced off since there were free range cattle roaming around. In the night I heard the moos but I also heard some wacky animal sounds. I thought they might have been the Bighorn sheep or something. Later on I realized they were coming from the cows. I could almost make out the words “get out! they’re going to turn you into hamburger”. Maybe he was warning the other cows 🙂