Montana Trip - Part VII

Still going to finish this trip out, two years down the road.


The next morning we broke camp and headed into Sturgis.

 The Trophy in a sea of Harleys.

 We spent the morning wandering the main drag, taking in the sights.

 All sorts of custom bikes to be found.

 Can you imagine taking this bike on a cross country road trip?

 We stopped in all the famous hangouts.

 The Blues Brothers were keeping the peace.

 Every minute of the day is filled with the constant drone of loud pipes.

 She had about twenty guys taking photos, me included.  I don't know if those heels are appropriate safety gear, but they certainly work with that bike.

 We had lunch in town and then hit the road.  We only had one day in the Black Hills and still wanted to stop by Mount Rushmore.  We made camp early at Fort Welikit Campground.  We got lucky setting up camp early.  It rained later that night and it would have sucked setting up our tents in the rain.

 We made a point to head towards Mount Rushmore on U.S. Route 16A. A great road with 360 degree curves and one lane tunnels.  I recommend, if you're in the area, to check it out.

 Mount Rushmore was off in the distance.

 Here's a zoomed in view.

 I believe this was my second time here.

 We headed over to Hill City for dinner.

 One of those perfect evenings.  We had reached our farthest point from home and tomorrow marked the point where we had to turn back towards reality.

 After dinner we headed towards camp.  We hit a pretty heavy downpour and had to crawl into our tents with the rain coming down.

More to come...

Old Photos

Random Old Photos.  Testing Googles new photo album.  Not liking it.  Still planning on finishing the Sturgis trip.

The old white truck.  My dad still has this vehicle.

A younger photo of myself.

Montana Trip 2014 - Part VI

This is the continuation of a trip my dad, my friend Jacob, and I took at the end of July.

(Sorry for the delay in posts, it's been a busy couple of weeks.  New boss, Jury Duty, end of year projects starting to pile up, uugghh!)

Day 9

View Larger Map

It was Sunday, August 3rd, 2014.  A day before the official Sturgis rally started, and we were headed that way.  But first my Butler motorcycle map of Wyoming listed some great rides through the Bighorn Mountains, so we spent the morning crossing that range, not once, but twice!

From Dayton we climbed into the foothills, on the northeast side of the range.

 It was heating up down below, but where we were headed the temperature would drop down into the sixties!

 The ride on highway 14 was so amazing we just kept going.  No stopping for pictures. Just enjoying the ride and the company.  It wasn't until we had come down out of the mountains, and were about to head back in, that we took some time for some photo opportunities.  One of these days I'm going to have to invest in one of those GoPro's.

This is highway 16, headed back to the east.  The road followed a river canyon into the hills.

 Jacob and I overlooking Meadowlark Lake.

 Powder River Pass, the high point of highway 16 as it crosses the southern portion of the Bighorn Mountains.

 If it wasn't for the sports bike, you'd swear he was a mountain man of the 1800's.

 Highway 16 lead us into the town of Buffalo Wyoming.  My dad was a big fan of the Longmire TV series.  It's ironic that the last episode aired a day after this photo was taken.

 We stopped at the Occidental Hotel and Saloon for lunch.  This place has a pretty fancy history, see link, that housed visitors such as Buffalo Bill, Teddy Roosevelt, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!  My wife had to explain to me what Occident is opposite of.  Oh, like you all knew!

 The inner lobby of the hotel.  The saloon was off to the side.

 A very blurry picture of the saloon.  The numerous stuffed animals on the walls were popular with the restaurant visitors.

 From Buffalo we had to hop on the Interstate.  The only positive was that the speed limit was posted at 80Mph, so it felt as if we were speeding:)

Luckily we didn't have to spend all day on the slab.  Once we hit the town of Moorcroft, we veered north until we spotted our next point of interest, the Devil's Tower.  No, we didn't have any close encounters while there:).  You could tell that we were close to Sturgis though,  motorcycle traffic had picked up significantly!

 Wait a minute, maybe we did spot some aliens there...no.. no. sorry, that's just my dad.

 One of the cooler aspects of the tower were these birds flying around the top.  There was something mesmerizing about watching them circle over the edge of the massive stone structure.

 Here I am showing my hidden x-men ability to grow in size until I'm the same height as the tower. 

 A couple of action shots as we were leaving the park.

 The sun was starting it's descent into the western sky as we crossed over into South Dakota.

 One of those magical portions of the trip where you try to capture the essence of your surroundings.  You realize you'll never be here, at this portion of your life, again and you have to absorb as much sensory input as you can to remember the moment.  You can also take a lot of photos, which helps as well.

 South Dakota must have known that I was coming.  Just look at that great face!

 That evening we pulled into Wyatt's Hideaway Campground which is outside the town of Belle Fourche, SD.  This was a nicely run campground, set on 13 acres, which was setup to handle large crowds very nicely.  We picked this place as it was about 20 miles outside of Sturgis, and would allow us to get up the next morning and experience the rally.

 Next post, Sturgis pictures!!! Stay tuned.  Thanks for reading!