Spearfish Canyon and Devil's Tower...and BAR!

Not a lot of detail for today. Why? Uhm…well…we’re cocked. And by cocked, I mean drunk. Ya see, we had an excellent day of riding, followed by an unexpected surprise at a bar just up the street from where we’re staying tonight. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s how the day rolled out…(352 miles for the day, total).

We checked pout of Mt. Rushmore KOA, rode Spearfish Canyon and then hit the highway to go check out Devil’s Tower. But I’m getting ahead of myself again. So let’s try and slow things down a bit.

Frikkin' crikey. If any of you could see me typing this right now, you’d either bust a nut laughing. Or shake your head in sympathy. Did I not mention that we’re cocked? Typos abound! If I could type normally, I’d have this little ditty done up nicely in about 5 minutes. But try as I might to sober up, Zig keeps feeding me more beers (that we bought from the bar! Wait til I tell you about how cool this bar is!)

So anyway, we hit Spearfish Canyon and what an amazing ride it was. High rock outcroppings, sharp left and rights, long curves…and three dudes skateboarding. A river long-dried, which was a mystery to us until we located an info center that explained the river actually was ‘swallowed’ by sink holes. So a river that was quite strong and forceful to begin with, vanished and became a dry bed of stones. (But the stone selection was quite extensive.) Wait, I skipped over the skate boarding guys. There were three dudes, just sailing down the roadway, nice and easily. We caught up to them at one rest area and asked them what do they do when they reach the bottom. Turns out they’ve put some thought into this; they leave one car at the bottom of the canyon and have another car at the top. When the get to the bottom, they drive up to the car at the top and then are on their way again. Not too shabby a plan at all. Ok, maybe I didn't explain it so well, but the plan they had seemed pretty sound.

From there, we jumped back onto Rte 90 and kicked our bikes in the arse once more, to get them rolling along at a respectable pace (+90 mph). Making good time, we soon found ourselves at one of the exits for Devil’s Tower…

Which was frikkin’ amazing!! Once you take the exit, you ride and ride and ride, and you think “how can they stick a ginormous stone outcropping into the middle of nowhere and not see it coming? Guess what? They can’t! You get about 20 miles away and all of a sudden; you take a corner and HEY!, there’s a big stone thingie sticking up in the air! So totally cool. We did the photo thing (many times)l, and the opted to turn the bikes towards the main Mecca of this whole thing called the “Black Hills Rally”; Sturgis.

We made it there…only to find out that there isn’t a service dept there. I know; big scam. Anyway, we shot off from there and headed to their sister location; the Black Hills HD shop. Only to have them tell Zig that the problem he’s having is indeed a main problem inside the radio and there’s nothing they (the dealership) can do for him. Another example of customer service at it’s worst. (Ok, the customer service guy was cool, and his hands are tied by The Factory, which still stand by the statement that “All our bikes are 100% perfect)…BULLSHIT!!!

Anywho, from there, we set out sights onto Rte 44 East, through the badlands, and just rocked out. The map said this stretch was only 32 miles long, but when you’re riding through desolate stretches of nothingness, time just stands still. Sounds completely cliché’, but it’s entirely true. All you can see for miles in front of you….and miles to the left and right of you…is nothing but barren, foreboding stretches of land which seem to go on forever.

We finally managed to make it to the KOA we’re staying in tonight. They had one cabin left, which we thankfully took possession of…for about 4 minutes. At which time we shot back out to a bar we’d passed on the way in. Ya see; we needed food and beer, and we weren’t to be disappointed as it turned out. The bar owner was working the bar and he fed us whikked yummy pizza, and also fed us very cheap beers. And then he had friends show up. Soon the place was hopping and they were all loving that we were from Boston.

We’d had quite a long day and were kicking around the idea of heading back to the cabin and getting a good night’s sleep - but that sure as hell didn’t happen...Shots, laughs, all-around good times. Every time that Zig and I started/tried to leave, someone else was buying another round. And of course; it would be rude to depart and leave a brandy-new beer behind, so our ‘quick beer and food’ plan evolved into something which devolved into harmless debauchery. What a great group of folks there. The “Horseshoe Pub” was the name and if you’re ever in the area, just tell Greg (owner) that Dave and Zig are buying you a drink.

So, now that this ‘short’ post is running quite long, I won’t bore you with any more details. Suffice to say that we made it safely back.

And the wind is frikkin amazing!! There are no clouds in the sky tonight. Zero. Zilch. Amazing viewing of the stars. But the wind is like we’re about to have a hurricane. It was blowing Zig and my bikes all over the place on our way back…the only thing missing is some Lightning Strikes!!

Ok, it’s time to turn in. ‘Member when I said that this post wasn’t going to have a lot of detail? Apparently, I lied.

But I am beat. And Zig turned in a short while ago. So now I’m going to follow his lead and wrap things up.

Hope all are doing well. We’re having a blast!! (And look at the time that I posted this! It’s late!!) HEY!! Zig just came back!! He didn’t abandon me. But it is late, and we have a 12-pack to finish. Oops, disregard that last part.

Ride Hard, Take Chances