I awoke around 7 AM. There weren't a whole lot of distractions, being alone on the farm, so I got dressed and packed my luggage fairly quickly. I opted to skip taking a shower as it was down in the cellar and frankly I was too lazy to do it. I was going to be sitting on the bike all day anyway, so who cared if I stank?
Looking out the window, it was foggy. Walking outside the air smelled heavy like a storm was about to roll in. This was not what I wanted to face before getting on a motorcycle to ride across the prairie. I walked around the farm and snapped some pictures. For some reason the fog didn't show up as heavy in the photos as it was in real life.
I then went out to the garage and went through the pile of items my cousin Joel asked me to look at before he took them to the dump. As I suspected, there wasn't anything there that was worth saving. After that I closed up the house and loaded the bike.
With the bike ready to go, I fired it up and headed out. I went down the dirt road I had travelled the previous night on the way in. Thankfully the fog was lifting and I was hoping I could get south of the clouds before the rain hit.
I needed gas. I was skeptical that I could find any in Fairfax, but I decided to ride into town anyway if for no other reason but to look around. As I suspected there wasn't any place open where I could get gas. I snapped a picture and waved at a few of the residents then pulled out and headed toward Bonesteel.
Bonesteel, SD was about 6 miles in the opposite direction I wanted to head. However I was unfamiliar with the route I was taking south into Nebraska, and didn't know how far I would have to go to get fuel. I knew I could get some in Bonesteel, so I decided to take a little detour.
I gassed up the bike, and then bought a couple of slices of breakfast pizza the station was selling. As I was standing out by the fuel pumps eating, a guy came out of the store. He looked at me for a few seconds and I looked at him. Suddenly we realized we knew each other. It was my friend Reed from Sioux Falls, who I hadn't seen in at least 10 years. Neither one of us were expecting to see someone we knew in Bonesteel, which is why it took us both a moment to figure it out. It turns out he was doing some hunting in the area and happened to stay at the motel across the street. We chatted for a while and then bid each other farewell.
Back on the road I headed south. Having been to the farm countless times throughout my life, somehow I had never gone south from Fairfax into Nebraska, even though it was only a couple miles away. Today was the day.
I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew west of Fairfax lay 200 miles of barren nothing. I figured that south of Fairfax into Nebraska would be more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised, as I rode through beautiful rolling hills through a river valley. It was a nice area and I'm not sure how I had gone this long without knowing it existed.
When I came to highway 20 I headed east. This road was a little busier than I expected rural Nebraska to be. It took me from town to town, passing through mostly farmland.
For a long stretch alongside the highway there was a MUP trail for people to ride bicycles and walk/run. I found it an interesting feature to be found in pretty much the middle of nowhere. Occasionally there would be a town, but the further west I got the further apart they became.
One of the things that really surprised me for the entire day as I rode through the north-western portion of Nebraska was the wide variety of terrain I would see. About every 50 miles I would experience a complete change in scenery. I have to admit that Nebraska was much more scenic and interesting than I had anticipated.
Just east of Valentine, NE, I rode through a river valley where the view was wonderful. I stopped and snapped a few pictures.
In Valentine it was lunch time, so I stopped and put fuel in the bike then decided to look for a place to eat. Across the street was a little restaurant called the Bunkhouse. I decided it would do and went in for some lunch.
It was a quaint little diner. The special of the day was the nacho platter, so I ordered it. It was pretty good, but what caught my eye when I entered was the carousel of homemade pies by the entrance. I almost never order dessert when I'm eating out, but a piece of blueberry pie was calling to me, so I ordered one. Blueberry pie is also something I don't have very often.
Let me tell you, that was the absolute best piece of pie I have ever eaten. It was simply amazing. If I was travelling by car I would have purchased the remainder of the pie to take with me. Alas, I had nowhere to store it so I had to leave the rest for another patron to enjoy.
Back on the road I continued to head west. The day was warming up into the mid 80's, but wasn't yet particularly hot. I rode for an hour or so, and then headed south toward Alliance, NE where Carhenge was located.
The towns were becoming farther and farther apart, with fewer signs of civilization between them. In one town I passed through they had a military helicopter on display. I stopped long enough to snap a picture.
As I got closer to Alliance, there were more signs of life. One farmer had a sense of humor:
At long last, I arrived at Carhenge.
I pulled into the parking lot and took my jacket off. I hadn't taken it off yet as while I was moving there was enough air flowing that I wasn't too hot. Now that I was stopped I decided it was time to stash the jacket in the saddlebag and apply some sunscreen.
There it was: Carhenge.
I walked around and snapped pictures, enjoying the novelty of the "monument."
I'm guessing they have to occasionally give these cars a fresh coat of paint as they aren't in the most friendly environment.
Most of the cars were from the 50's through the 70's. There was a pretty good variety.
I figured being in the middle of rural western Nebraska, I'd be the only person walking around. However, while it wasn't crowded, there were a fair amount of people who came and went during my visit.
In addition to the Stonehenge replica, there were other examples of "junk" art there too. This one was called Spawning Salmon.
There were several dinosaur skeletons made from junk guarding the area as well.
This car had a patriotic poem written on it. Unfortunately I didn't get close enough for it to be readable in the photo.
So many interesting pieces of "art" were sitting around the area. I spent a while walking around and looking at them all.
After seeing all the sights, I went into the gift shop and bought a T-Shirt. I don't very often buy shirts from places I visit, but I figured Carhenge was unique enough that I wanted something to commemorate my trip. After looking around the area for about a half hour, I loaded up and hit the road. My next plan was to ride into Alliance and fuel up.
Alliance was just a few miles down the road. I stopped and got gas, and bought a root beer. On this trip I wound up drinking a lot of root beer, trying to purchase a different brand each time so I could compare. At the end of the trip my favorite of those I'd sampled turned out to be the tried and true A&W. As a disclaimer, I limited myself to the major bottlers. I know there are exotic custom root beers out there so I'm not implying that A&W is better than all of those as well.
I headed south out of Alliance toward Scottsbluff. The terrain continued to change, with this stretch becoming very hilly.
As I pulled into Scottsbluff, I realized it was aptly named. Just to the south of the town were plenty of bluffs that looked like they would be pretty to ride through. However, by this time I was becoming weary and I had quite a few miles until I would reach my hotel in Hot Springs, SD. So I opted not to explore and to just trek on.
From Scottsbluff I headed north. The scenery became more barren, towns became sparse and traffic was almost non-existent.
The scenery was pretty, in its own simple way.
At one point I came across a couple on a Harley Road King pulled over on the shoulder. This would have been a horrible place to break down as you couldn't even get a radio station signal let alone a cell phone signal. I pulled over to make sure they were OK. They were, and had just pulled over to stretch their legs. They thanked me for stopping and I went on my way.
As I got farther north, I started seeing trees again. Figuring I'd better get gas when I had the opportunity, I made another stop at a station I passed along the way. As it turned out this was a wise choice as it was the last station I would see before Hot Springs.
After what seemed an eternity, I finally reached the South Dakota border. By this point I was ready to get off the bike and get something to eat.
Despite living in South Dakota most of my life I had never been down in this corner of the state. Years ago there was talk of putting a nuclear waste disposal site at Edgemont, SD which wasn't far from this road. There was a lot of controversy about it, and the proposal eventually failed. I suspect if more people had actually travelled to this area the vote may have swayed the other direction. There's a whole lot of nothing out here.
South of Hot Springs I started to hit the southern edge of the Black Hills. I didn't have much further to go.
I finally pulled into Hot Springs and found my hotel at the Dollar Inn. It was a little local place that sold their rooms through HotWire.com.
I checked in. The owner saw I was on a motorcycle and told me he had a special room set aside for bikers. It was around the back, and I could park the bike under a shelter just a few feet from the door of my room. Very cool!
I sat in the cool of my room for a few minutes resting, then I showered up and decided to find something to eat. I rode back through downtown and saw a Chinese buffet which sounded good so I stopped.
The buffet had a sign touting that none of their food has MSG. After eating there I decided that MSG must be what makes Chinese food taste so good. The buffet food wasn't bad but it wasn't anything to write home about either.
When I finished eating it was pushing 9 PM, so I went back to the room and read my book for a while before I passed out from exhaustion.
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This page last updated on 06/28/2018