Moorcroft to Kadoka

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Got a good start on the day and had first gear by 7am. Rode out to Devil's Tower and through the park. It's a pretty impressive monolith created by geological activity. It's still eroding with a slow attrition of boulders which sit at her feet.

We rolled into Sturgis listening to Justin Bieber, just kidding, managed to find some ZZ Top for the occasion followed by Foo Fighters.


We arrived here around 10am in 30 degrees. What an awesome town, a real rustic feel with great down to earth people. I can see why they have the Harley rally here each year. At the moment they are having a mustang rally so there's some fabulous cars here too. Trev and I went to a local coffee house as we were in dangerous need of caffeination, had a great coffee there. Trev needed to go find a map so he rode off and I got talking with Mike the owner. He was saying that during the Sturgis week a lot of gangs come in so he keeps a loaded gun behind the bar which he unloaded and showed to me; a Glock handgun. He offered to take my pic with it behind the bar so I grabbed the gun and walked behind the bar, the waitress had heard nothing of our conversation and yelled out, "what the hell" when she saw me with the gun behind the bar. Mike reassured her it was just gun safety 101 and happiness resumed. Trev arrived back in time to find his wife behind the bar holding a gun in the air.

Mike then told us of some good rides in South Dakota as we headed toward Mt Rushmore. We did the needles which was great riding, lots of winds, rocks, tunnels, and road that wound around upon itself. Just phenomenal!

That done we headed for Mt Rushmore spotting buffalo, prairie dogs and antelope along the way. Mt Rushmore was amazing, to think someone carved that into the rock face; they must have had tremendous vision. I don't know why but it seemed smaller than I expected, very cool though.

We then banged out a few miles to get a bit further east before stopping at Kadoka as the weather looked threatening.

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