The alarm went off at 6:15. Jon had told me the night before that he probably would wake up early because he's used to being up early at home, but when it went off he was still lying in bed. The beds had been unusually comfortable with a big, thick pillow-top. I was surprised by this, especially at a Super 8. In fact, I wouldn't have minded having that same mattress at home. We got up and started to prepare.
Much to our dismay, when we looked out the window we saw that it had rained during the night. It wasn't raining at the moment, but there were enough deep puddles that I could tell it had rained quite a bit. We looked at the radar and learned that we were in the middle of a lull, but when we headed west we were going to ride through rain all the way to Rapid City. After that it looked clear, at least as far as the Rapid City radar was showing. Things were looking pretty overcast and glum.
We got dressed, packed up and went out and loaded the bike. I could tell that this was Jon's first trip, as I set my pack on my rack, fastened the strap around the backrest and hooked up my bungee cords in about 30 seconds. It took Jon about 5 minutes to get his pack in place and all strapped down. By the end of the trip he had dropped his time to about 2 minutes. Admittedly, his pack had a lot more straps, cords and a rain cover that mine didn't.
Judging by what the radar told us, we decided to put on our rain gear before we left the hotel rather than waiting until we actually ran into precipitation. It looked inevitable that we would need it and I figured it was easier to put it on inside the hotel than on the side of the interstate. We grabbed our rain gear and went inside for some breakfast.
Breakfast at the Super 8 wasn't fancy, but it was free. Jon didn't eat a whole lot, as it turns out he's not much of a breakfast person. I, on the other hand, am very much a breakfast person so I loaded up on waffles and coffee. I'm more likely to skip lunch whereas Jon (I'm assuming because of his lack of breakfast) likes to eat lunch. Interesting how people are different.
Jon asked if we were going to go by Devil's tower. When mapping out our original route I had considered going by Devil's Tower, but had left it off the itinerary because it would add about an hour to the trip and be about 30 miles additional riding. Before we left Sioux Falls, Jon had expressed concern about how well his butt would hold up to the long trip, which is the reason I had omitted the jaunt over to see Devil's Tower. However, as of Murdo he was feeling great physically so we decided to alter the plans and add it in. The ride from Belle Fourche, SD over to Devil's Tower is very scenic, so I didn't mind the change.
We checked out of the hotel. Outside there was an old Hudson sitting there for sale. It looked in great shape. I had no need to purchase it, but I did take a picture.
The temperature was in the 50s. We thought this was a little cool, but as we were soon to find out the next few days would find us longing for these warm temperatures. But more on that in due time...
We hit the road on our first leg of the day's journey.
As expected, less than 5 miles down the interstate we hit rain. Actually, the rain hit us. It came down hard enough that visibility became a concern. I was in the lead, and the rain covered my windshield. Motorcycles don't have windshield wipers so when that happens it really interferes with my ability to see. My sunglasses suffered the same problem. We slowed our speed to 45-50 mph just because we were unable to see the road. Actually, we probably should have gone even slower but I was concerned that we would get hit from behind because visibility was very poor. Thankfully, the rain was coming down hard enough that cars were slowing down too.
At the Kennebec off ramp I pulled off to check on Jon. Not only was this his first motorcycle trip, he also had never ridden in the rain before. I asked him if he was doing OK and he said he was, but he did ask if I thought we should stop at Kennebec or press on. The radar had indicated it was going to rain in this area most of the day so I didn't think stopping would do us any good. Our best bet was to forge ahead and try to get west of the system. Jon agreed and we hit the interstate again.
The rain continued to come down hard. I was wearing rain gear, but the rain was finding every nook and cranny to seep through. Rain was being driven through the zipper on the front and I could feel the water running down my chest. My gloves were completely soaked, which I expected to happen. What was unexpected was that my boots got completely soaked. They were supposed to be waterproof, but the rain was driving hard enough that they just couldn't withstand that amount of moisture. Jon had the same thing happen. Curiously enough, both of us reported that our left boot held more water than our right boot, although the difference was negligible because both boots were quite wet.
It continued to rain hard enough to keep visibility at a minimum. We rode past the Badlands, but couldn't see them at all. By the time we hit Wall, SD, though, the rain let up. We came out of the other side of the storm earlier than I had expected but I certainly wasn't going to complain about it.
We hit a few sprinkles from Wall to Rapid City, but nothing like the deluge that we had ridden through earlier. On the west side of Rapid City we stopped for gas. As I was getting ready to fill up my tank, I dropped my wallet. As I leaned over to pick it up I discovered the hood of my rain gear had filled up and held at least a half-gallon of water. It poured out over my head which caused Jon to erupt in laughter, which then caused me to also erupt in laughter. We stood there howling as other people looked on like we were lunatics. It was one of those great therapeutic fits of laughter that released all of the tension from the morning.
After we filled our tanks, we rode over to the Harley Davidson dealership. The Harley dealerships sell these poker chip tokens with the dealer information on them. Jon has a collectors book where he can keep them all, and one of the things he wanted to do on this trip was to stop at the dealerships to purchase the tokens.
Because of the rain during the morning, Jon had not put his sheepskin cover on his seat. He figured (probably correctly) that it would turn into a giant wet sponge. Because of this he noticed that his butt was really starting to hurt sitting directly on the stock seat. Harley sells an inflatable seat pad called a Road Zeppelin. He had wanted to purchase one before we left Sioux Falls, but the dealership there was sold out. The Rapid City dealership happened to have them in stock so he purchased one. After he put it on his bike he never switched back to the sheepskin. This parallels my experience on my first trip to Yellowstone where I brought both a sheepskin and a beaded seat cover. Once I went beads, I never went back.
As Jon was buying the seat pad, I browsed around. I found a pair of vest button extenders. I had noticed on last year's trip that when layering clothes underneath my vest it was causing the buttons to pop open. Once all the buttons had come undone then it hung uncomfortably from my neck. So I decided to give the button extenders a try. They said "Harley Davidson" on them which meant I paid about twice what I should have, but they wound up doing the trick for the rest of the trip so I guess they were worth it.
I also bought a spare throttle rocker while I was there (which was reasonably priced because it didn't have the HD logo on it.) After one trip where I had my throttle rocker fall off the bike in the middle of Minneapolis rush-hour traffic, I like to keep a spare in my saddlebag. I was currently without a spare because a few years prior I had loaned it to a "friend" who never returned it. To be fair, when I loaned it I had a strong suspicion that it wasn't coming back, so I pretty much treated it like a gift. Anyway, now I had a spare again.
We hit the road and went down the interstate past the town of Sturgis. We picked up highway 34 which went northwest by the town of Belle Fourche, SD. West of Belle Fourche we came to the Wyoming border. At this point in time this was the farthest away from Sioux Falls that Jon had ever ridden, so we took a picture to commemorate the event.
As we continued west towards Devil's Tower the weather became threatening again. Clouds were forming and the winds were picking up. Jon reported seeing both a herd of deer and a rattlesnake on the road, both of which I missed. Not sure what I was looking at but I'm guessing I was preoccupied with the pending weather.
The previous hour of wind had dried out my gloves. Now the rain started in again and re-soaked them. It became increasingly foggy as well. I tried to capture a picture but I've noticed that for some reason fog never shows up well in photos.
The fog thickened. We went up a mountain pass and came around a corner to find a couple bikers who had stopped on the road to put their rain gear on. Both Jon and I were able to stop in time to avoid hitting them, but it took panic braking to do it. That was the absolutely dumbest place these guys could have stopped. They're lucky I wasn't driving a garbage truck as they would have been splattered on the highway.
Coming into this trip, Jon was not an overly-experienced rider having logged less than 10k miles in his eight years since getting his first motorcycle. The roads in eastern South Dakota are mostly straight as an arrow, and as a result Jon didn't have much experience riding mountain curves. This was his first real opportunity to discover mountain riding. I was in the lead and rode fairly conservatively through the twisties, but would frequently have to slow down to let Jon catch up. We had discussed this situation before we left so I expected it. I also expected that he would gain quite a bit of riding confidence through the course of this trip, and I would later discover my prediction would come true.
Once again we passed through the rain and by the time we got to Devil's Tower the sun was coming out.
We stopped for a short bathroom break. We were getting a little hungry so we each bought a couple Snickers and ate them while we took a few photos. There was an older couple on back deck of the gift shop. Jon took their picture for them, then we snapped ours. The deck gave a tremendous view of the monument.
We hit the highway again with the plans for the next stop to be Gillette. At the town of Moorcroft, WY we got back on the interstate. The speed limit on this stretch of the interstate was 80 mph. I welcomed the increase in speed, but disliked the associated reduction in gas mileage it caused.
In Gillette we first stopped at the Harley dealership so Jon could get his poker chip. I waited outside. There was a couple parked next to us who had just ridden down from Montana and they said that interstate 90 had been rain-free all the way to the Montana border. The temperature was back up in the 60's, so I removed my rain gear.
After Jon got his chip, we rode a few more miles up I-90 to another exit, then stopped for gas and lunch. Lunch wasn't anything too exotic: McDonalds. While we ate I sent an update to my wife as to our whereabouts. As it turned out my meal didn't sit real well with me. I wasn't necessary sick the rest of the day, but I did feel a little "off."
Once again we hit the interstate. The sun was mostly out until I-90 swung north at the town of Buffalo and merged with I-25. At that point the speed limit dropped to 75 mph, but that wasn't such a bad thing as it kept getting cloudier and cloudier and the temp started dropping. By the time we hit Sheridan for our next gas stop the temp was back down in the 50s and there was a steady drizzle falling.
After I filled up the tank I used the restroom, then Jon and I both took a few minutes to put on our chaps. We were going to be heading up into the Bighorn Mountains and knew it would be getting colder. We were already chilly and my experience my previous trips on highway 14 told me that the upper plateau takes about 15 degrees off the temperature of the foothills. Jon also put his rain gear back on, but I decided to gamble that I wouldn't need them.
We buzzed up the interstate about 10 more miles to Ranchester where we got off and started following highway 14. A few miles down the road we went through the town of Dayton.
We could see the low clouds were obscuring the view of the tops of the mountains. That meant fog was coming. Jon stopped to dig his camera out of the saddlebag.
We began the ascent. It was very pretty as we went up the mountain.
But we could see the clouds, rain and fog coming. Sure enough the temp dropped into the upper 40s.
We continued down highway 14. Roughly 15 miles into the mountains highway 14 junctions, with one route being 14A to Lovell and the other being regular 14 to Greybull. I had taken the 14A route twice before, but had never been on regular 14 so that's the way we went this time around. So this was a new road for both of us to explore. After the junction it started off rather dull, but then became extremely scenic. Because of the clouds and rain it probably wasn't as pretty as it would have been on a sunny day, but there were still spots that were very breathtaking.
As we came through the other side of the mountains and headed towards Greybull, a very strong and cold north wind had developed. Up to this point through the mountains the moisture hadn't amounted to more than a drizzle, so I had been making due without my rain gear. Once we descended the temperature didn't warm back up like I expected, so when we reached Greybull I pulled over to put on my rain gear. I wasn't sure I needed it for rain as much as a barrier against the wind.
Once we hit the west edge of town we started the last 50 mile stretch to Cody. This is an extremely dull piece of highway 16. However, this time around the rain hit as soon as we were out of town. This wasn't just a boring old rain. This was heavy cold rain bordering on sleet driven sideways into us by the strong wind.
We rode along and froze to death. Because of the wind, the right side of my face was getting worn raw from the sleet hitting it. My glasses weren't doing much to stop the ice from pelting my eyes. Earlier in the day I had described riding in the rain like "being stuck by 100s of needles at the same time." Jon now concurred with my comparison.
After about 30 miles of misery, I had to pull over for a few minutes just to put my back to the wind and give my face a rest. Jon had a flip down shield on his helmet, so his eyes were a little more protected but his face was also taking a beating. While I am a fan of my open-faced helmet, at this exact point in time a salesman could have sold me a full-faced one. In fact, if someone with a trailer came along and offered a ride, I would have conceded. Nobody did though, so we had no choice but to "man up" and get back on our bikes.
We weren't running too fast, probably about 50 mph, simply because visibility was so poor. It's bad enough trying to see in regular rain but when it's blown at you completely sideways it's downright blinding. Had there been another town I probably would have recommended we pull over and tried to wait the rain out. There wasn't. There wasn't anything at all on this lonely stretch of highway so we had no choice but to press on.
After what seemed like an eternity, we reached Cody. My glasses were so fogged and wet that I couldn't see where the lanes were in the street, so I had to pull over and try to rectify the situation. I got them cleaned off a little but visibility was still poor.
Jon wanted to visit the Harley dealer to pick up his chip. We found the store on the main street, and pulled around a corner to park. The rain was really coming down now but we were soaked to the bone anyway so it didn't matter if we had to walk in it.
Unfortunately the store closed at 6:00 and it was now 6:20. We missed it by 20 minutes. Rats. Also, due to our schedule and the store hours this day was the only time we had a shot at visiting the store. So Jon wound up travelling all the way to Cody and not getting his chip. He may try to get one by mail as I can vouch for him that we were there.
We got back on the bikes and went in search for our hotel. We were staying at the Big Bear Motel. Visibility was still poor and I wasn't completely sure where the motel was located, so we were riding slow and looking. At one point I thought I located the hotel and pulled in to the lot only to discover that we had found Big Bear Motors. Not the same thing.
Thankfully Big Bear Motel was just a few blocks further west. We pulled up to the office and went in. The guy behind the desk was pretty nice as he helped us get checked in. He told us about the room and how to operate the heater which he figured we'd want to use. He also mentioned that the cold and rain wasn't typical for August and that it was supposed to start clearing up the next day.
We rode over to our room and pulled our motorcycles up under the porch. The guy in the office recommended we do that just because the floor of the porch was concrete and the parking lot was gravel and he didn't want our bikes to fall over if the kickstands sunk into the murk.
We unloaded and got inside of our room. There was a clothes rack so we hung up our gear in the hopes that it would dry off by the next day. Our boots were soaked so we set them next to the heater with the hope that they too would dry. One trick that works pretty well with wet shoes is to pack them full of crumpled newspaper. The paper will soak up the moisture and dry the shoes out. Unfortunately, I didn't have any newspaper with us and finding some meant going back out in the rain. At this point Jon was adamant that he was intending to stay in the motel room the rest of the evening, and frankly I wasn't against the idea either.
I actually started to walk over to the office to see if they had newspaper, but something deep and powerful inside me didn't want to walk out from the protection of the porch and back into the rain. I was just tired of being wet so I retreated back to the room. Interestingly enough, the pool was full of people out in the cold and rain. I could call them crazy, but then they could call us the same thing for what we'd just ridden through.
We decided to order a pizza and some wings for delivery. It turned out to be rather expensive: $44 with tip for a large pizza, two orders of wings and a 2 litre of Pepsi. I wasn't going to argue, though, as we didn't have to leave the motel room and that in itself was worth something.
We ate supper and watched the weather channel. Things weren't looking too promising for the next day. Conversely the southern states were complaining about record heat so we were harboring mean thoughts toward that area of the country.
With half a pizza left we decided to save it for breakfast the next morning. There was a small refrigerator in the room so I packed up the remains and wedged it in.
We called our families and reported in. Lots of information to relay on this day, most of it related to the weather and the cold. After the phone calls and food we took turns taking a hot shower. When I got out Jon was in bed and looked like he was out for the night. I finished getting ready and crawled into my bed about 10 PM. I turned out the light and then Jon started talking. Apparently he got his 2nd wind because we wound up talking until about 12:15 when I finally had to call it quits.
I slept rather fitfully that night. I'm not sure if it was the stress of the day, the pizza or a combination of both, but I had really vivid and weird dreams. Not necessarily nightmares, but the kind of dreams where you wake with an adrenaline rush. While sleeping I managed to pull the fitted sheet off the mattress, so apparently I was restless.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018