July 8th
Weather sunny, crisp 57 degrees and calm at the lodge but warming up fast ( another perfect day!)

  • This is a full day in the Black Hills.
  • 1st stop is take Needles Highway down to town of Custer, SD and view the Woodcarvers National Museum – fascinating figurines and displays, some even animated wooden scenes, like the old time barber shop. Also resident carvers teach their skills.
  • 2nd stop on to Crazy Horse carving. It’s not finished, but his face is there. Probably won’t ever be finished… I think the US NPS offered to support finance to finish the project quickly, but the Native Americans want to do it themselves….
  • 3rd stop to Mt Rushmore, we arrived to find the park service rangers climbing all over the monument, (gave us a nice perspective how big those heads are..). Seems this day was the day that the “Banner for stopping Global Warming” was hung on the monument earlier that morning. We did get to see 6 of the responsible persons in handcuffs being hauled off to jail. Still the monument is a wonder, hard to describe, you have to go see it yourself.

  • Next stop was Keystone again…. and more souvenirs
  • That night we dined in Hill City, SD at the Alpine Inn. Only one thing on the menu, small or large sirloin steak, no choice of salad, just a wedge of iceberg lettuce, and baked potato…… Hard to believe people this day and age will allow an eating place to dictate what they are going to eat. BUT I HAD TO STAND IN LINE IN THE LOBBY OF THE OLD INN FOR 2 HOURS JUST TO GET A TABLE !!! Seriously, the line was out the door of the inn, down the porch onto the street to be seated at opening 5pm…. No reservations accepted. Amazing. But then comes desserts…. And they have a French Pastry Chef that makes awesome desserts….a total of 15 wonderful items….. Now I see why people have been coming to this place for over 20 years!
  • After dinner, watched an old west shoot out on the streets of Hill City…. A visit to the Harley Davidson Store (which has an outlet addition for great t-shirt buys) and finally more tourist traps and shopping. (my trailer is now about half souvenirs…. Will have to start packing things on the top rails of trailer starting tomorrow… and we haven’t even got to Yellowstone yet!
  • Back up the hill to the lodge, cool again, but greeted this time at the lodge by 3 mule deer that you could practically ride they were so curious. (They immediately came over to the Spyder, so I explained it to them, etc…)




Travelled only 76 miles, 2.2 engine hours…. But they were 76 miles in the best weather and most picturesque roads and sights you could imagine. I pity those people that had just cars, even those vans with “vista domes”, that could not possibly enjoy the open road views that we experienced today. I’m loving road trips more and more each day (on my Spyder )


July 9th
55 degrees and sunny again, calm winds

  • We decide to start our trip into Wyoming via Custer, SD to Newcastle, WY about 57 miles away early this morning.
  • Road west out of Custer, SD was virtually empty and the ride was coldest yet. Brother-in-Law forgot to bring warm gloves and I lent him my glove liners. AS we entered Wyoming, the landscape changed almost instantly to high plains desert. Quite a contrast from the piney Black Hills.
  • Pulled into Newcastle and stopped at only one of two diners open that morning for breakfast. Our waitress was from Michigan, same town where my daughter was living, says her parents owned the café in Manton, MI and her husband was a logger. He had opportunity to sell off his equipment and they moved down here so he could work for an oil company….. Small world. Newcastle home of only hand dug oil-well in the U.S. (It’s a hole about 25 deep seeping oil out of the ground)
  • Moved northwest to connect with I-90 and westward to Gillette, WY. Stopped at the huge (2 story) H.D. showroom. Got a presentation of the factory installed Nitrous system for the H.D. It’s activated only after the bike is going 80 mph? (They say it is for passing…. !!!!!) Then you can flip the switch and off you go… (on your ass if you aren’t holding on). Did you know that all bikes with Nitrous have optional backrests….(that’s a nifty way to sell an option)
  • We were making such good time on the interstate we decided to skip our scenic route via Hwy 14/16 to Spotted Horse, WY and go directly to Sheridan, WY via I-90 / I-25.
  • Arrived at Sheridan about 3pm, earliest arrival yet to our pre-planned stops. Guess what? The Rodeo was in town… The PRCA rodeo. They call it the “WYO” here in Sheridan.
  • Had to stop at the famous King Saddlery Shop. Check out there back room where they have thousands of ropes, lariats, etc in stock, all hand twisted and a museum of hundreds of saddles and western leather tooled pieces. There was a leatherman doing tooling. The sign said backordered for 3 months! Saw one saddle $14,000.00, but it was a beauty. Also some professional rodeo men were getting equipment. Never seen this before, but ropers have a special hard carrying case to store their lariats, etc…. Looked like a hat box, some were engraved with their names.




  • Rodeo sold out except for general admission, but we had to go. Got a lucky break as we sweet talked the girls controlling entry to let us go in early and got the best “nose bleed” seats available. Lots of action, also at this rodeo is the National Indian Bareback Relay Races. These are the finals, and it was very exciting. They team raced around a complete race track ( 1.2miles ) bareback three times exchanging horses….
  • Funniest Comment: Guy, drunk after the Rodeo comes up to the Spyder and says “ My, my, that’s a good looking piece of “iron”. I return his compliment, “No, it’s a good looking piece of plastic!”.
  • But the most interesting thing, was next morning laying on the top of my Alumna Trailer is a machine shop poster of a swimsuit beauty with the caption “ RIDE HARD” . (They didn’t leave one on my two in-laws H.D.’s !!!!!!!

Travelled 249 miles in 5.9 engine hours. The weather is still sunny, in fact seemed darn hot in Sheridan, WY. However, it cools off nicely in evening. While in bleachers at the “ WYO”, we saw amazing thundercells growing to the east and south…. A quick look at the weather channel back at the hotel said that the Black Hills got pummeled. We left just in time!