The first day of this trip started rather uneventful, with me going to work for four hours. Due to my work situation, I was unable to leave prior to noon. This made the morning rather difficult, as my thoughts were consumed with my upcoming ride, yet I had to work hard to finish up a project in time. Of all days, I didn't want to have to stay late on this one!
At noon, I left work and went home to make my final preparations. I finished packing the few items of which I hadn't yet been able. The day was hot and sunny, so I liberally soaked my body in sunscreen. After last year's fiasco with sunburned lips on my Yellowstone trip, I made sure I had liberally caked my lips with sunscreen lip balm as well. I changed out of my work clothes and into a set more suitably fitting for a motorcycle. I snarfed down a sandwich for lunch, and said my goodbyes to my family.
Here's a picture of me and my son a few minutes prior to me leaving, and few minutes prior to him going swimming.
The clock on my speedometer said 1:10 PM when I pulled out of my driveway. By the time I hit the interstate (less than a mile from my house) I remembered that I had forgotten to put in my earplugs. Not wanting to stop, and not feeling like trying to put them in while I barreled down the interstate at 80 mph, I decided to not use them until my first gas stop. When I did make my first stop, my ears had that "just got out of a concert deaf feeling" to them. I suffer from some partial hearing loss anyway, so it's important that I preserve what little hearing I have left. I vowed to not neglect my earplugs for the rest of the trip, which I didn't.
The first day's ride would just get me to the far west side of the state, in Deadwood, SD, which was approximately 400 miles down the road. The gas stops I used the previous year on my trip to Yellowstone had worked pretty well, so I followed the same ride schedule. The first stop was in Oacoma, which was 150 miles down the road just over the Missouri river. I did pretty well on this stop managing my time. I usually try and keep my gas stops at less than 20 minutes, which sounds like a lot but as I discovered last year, the time whizzes by pretty quickly. At on this stop I filled up, wrote down my milage log information, used the restroom, bought an iced tea and was back on the road in about 11 minutes. Not too bad if I do say so myself.
The weather on the east side of the state was beautiful. Sunny, and about 85 degrees with a very light south wind. By the time I crossed the river onto the west side of the state, the temps had raised about 10 degrees and there was now a strong 30 mph crosswind. This is a pretty typical wind for South Dakota, so I'm used to it. The east-river weather, however, had my hopes up that maybe I would luck out and things would stay mild and calm. Oh well.
I ride or drive I-90 across South Dakota a couple of times per year, so I'm fairly familiar with the road. Near Belvedere, there is a sign that says "scenic overlook" with an off-ramp. I'd never taken the ramp, and seeing as I was on a pleasure trip I decided "what the heck, let's see the view." Once you're pulled into the overlook, this is what you see:
Now, perhaps this is scenic to someone from an overpopulated metropolitan area, but I'm not sure what the point of building this overlook is. I would be very surprised if a person hadn't noticed the exact same view for the last 100 miles along the interstate.
I-90 takes you along the north end of the Badlands. This trip didn't include a voyage into the park itself, but to the south of the interstate you could see parts of the terrain. The picture doesn't show it as clearly as it was actually visible. It's been a few years since I've been in the park; perhaps I'll schedule a side trip on my next ride.
At Wall, SD, I made my second gas stop. This is the home of the famous Wall Drug, but I didn't make that part of my visit; I stop in the store itself at least once a year, when I'm here with my wife. This day my mission was to get to the hotel by supper time, so I again focused on making my gas stop quick and efficient.
My lunch was starting to wear off, and my stomach was rumbling. I decided to down a candy bar to stave off my hunger, as I had another two hours to ride before I would arrive in Deadwood. While I was eating, I chatted with a couple on two bikes that I had passed shortly before arriving at Wall. They were from Rochester, MN and were on their way to Rapid City. It's pretty cool how there's a "brotherhood" among bikers.
Back on the bike, I rode through the most scenic portion of I-90 in South Dakota, which is the 25 miles just to the west of Wall. It is made up of steep rolling hills and has some beautiful scenery. The road flattens out again prior to reaching Rapid City, then starts to get a little more interesting once it runs along the north side of the Black Hills.
At Sturgis, I got off I-90 and headed south to Deadwood. The bike rally wasn't for another month, so there wasn't much going on.
Heading into Deadwood, I entered the Black Hills National Forest. The road got a little more twisty, and the hills got a little steeper.
Coming into Deadwood, I stopped and snapped a few pictures from the south end of town.
I finally arrived at my hotel around 6 PM. I had gained an hour due to the time zone change, so the entire trip took around six hours.
After checking in, I tried to call my wife to let her know I was still alive. I knew she wouldn't be home, but I figured I'd leave a message on the answering machine. That's when I discovered that, for some unknown reason, after five rings my calling card would announce that nobody is answering, then dump me back into the calling card menu. Unfortunately, our answering machine was set to pickup after six rings.
I made a few attempts in vain hoping that I had pressed a wrong button, or that the menuing system would give up and let it ring, but to no avail. So I hopped in the shower and cleaned off the layer of dirt and bugs that I had accumulated.
Once dressed, I caught the trolley downtown and ate supper at the Silverado casino buffet. Friday night is all-you-can-eat crab legs night. I had a few, but with crab legs I get bored before I get full. I like the taste, but it's very tedious breaking the things apart and fishing out the good stuff. Instead I just had myself a few chunks of prime rib.
After supper I wandered around the casinos for a few minutes. In Hickok's, I put a dollar into a nickle slot machine (I know, I'm a big spender.) I had it worked up to about $2.50 and thought about cashing it out, but wound up losing my profit. Once I was back to my original dollar I cashed out the nickels and wandered over to another machine. On the 7th or 8th pull, I hit $4 (jackpot!). Figuring that doing better than a 350% profit was more than I could realisticly expect, I immediately cashed it out and quit my gambling for the night. When I walked out of the casino, the trolley was coming by so I hopped on and rode back to the hotel.
I'm way too cheap to gamble. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I ever lost real money.
I tried calling my wife again, and successfully got through this time. Then I watched some stupid TV for a little while and called it a night.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018