Day 5

Today was a blast. When we left Douglas Tuesday morning it was 38 degrees, so the first hour or so was a pretty cold ride. But Brad used the universal hand signals for "can we draft behind your motor home?" with a family from Nevada, and they let us tuck behind them till we got to Gillette, WY where we stopped and had some hot chocolate and chicken noodle soup at a Perkins restaurant. Thankfully the weather warmed a bit (into the 40s) for the ride to Devils Tower which was a lot of fun. Great curvy roads and virtually no traffic. Afterward we headed north toward Montana where Brad almost hit a deer in the snowy hills of northeast Wyoming. The first part of the day, we frequently saw antelope, but after Devils Tower there were deer everywhere. Seriously, there was a two-mile stretch through a wooded area where we saw over 75 deer. No lie. The ride was awesome, one of the best of the trip.

Once we got into Montana, we filled up in the small town of Alzada and headed east toward Sturgis, South Dakota, a famous biker town known for a yearly motorcycle rally that brings thousands of bikers to the small town. We stopped there, bought a t-shirt, took a couple of pictures and headed south to Rapid City. The funny thing about Sturgis... we were there between thirty minutes and an hour and never saw a motorcycle (besides ours).

Once we got to Rapid City it was dark so we headed toward Mt. Rushmore and got a room at a Comfort Inn about 20 miles away from the monument. Interestingly, I got my second senior discount of the trip. We asked for it and they gave it to us. So call me old if you want, it saved us ten bucks.

We covered 325 miles today which brought our total over the 2000 mile mark. Tomorrow we take in Rushmore, the Crazyhorse monument, and the Badlands. Weather looks to be good, so we're looking forward to cruising the Black Hills.

(click on a picture to see a larger version)