After Yellowstone, I made my way to Ten Sleep, WY (via the Beartooth and Chief Joseph Scenic Byways - but wind was a scary deterrent at altitude!) to spend the night, and then Devil's Tower National Monument via Crazy Woman Canyon. There is a story behind the name, but once I rode through the area and saw Crazy Woman (everything) stores/etc., it all made more sense. It was a little gravel road through a canyon with a couple of huge boulder areas. I'd go back to camp there, but enjoyed the Big Horn mountains quite a bit more.
I linked up with my buddy Jason, who accompanied me for the rest of the trip as this year's Moto Mountain Man adventure, at Devil's Tower. We got a decent sunset, clear skies for stars, and then a nice sunrise at Devil's Tower. We stayed at the KOA, which meant showers and laundry (both needed and appreciated!).
From there we made our way to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We rode the Spearfish Canyon, Needles Highway (twice), and the Iron Mountain road to Mt. Rushmore. We camped there two nights, which meant we had time to ride and day trip the area. I will definitely go back to hit some of the gravel roads through the area.
This was also where we had the second bison encounter. We were riding the Needles highway and came around a blind curve, when lo and behold, another dumdum in a white car was stopped to photograph a bison on the left side of the road, just standing in the ditch. We hit the brakes hard to avoid colliding with the car, when Jason saw the bison and said into our intercoms "go, go, go!". We both passed the dumdum (thankfully no oncoming traffic), but could have practically slapped the bison on the butt on our way past!
We then rode to the Badlands National Park. Along the way we took shelter from a severe thunderstorm (complete with close lightning and thunder and hail) under an abandoned hotel's awning. Shortly after we got there, two dudes from Canada showed up to also take shelter. We chatted for about 30 minutes waiting out the storm.
All that rain meant the temperatures were down a bit. We rode through Badlands in early July in the 70*'s - fantastic!
From there we rode through Nebraska (the Survey Valley was very pretty and remote), Kansas, and Oklahoma on our way to the Ozarks. We had a couple of nights there, so we could day trip some roads. Arkansas was nice, but the (in)famous Pig Trail just didn't live up to the Blue Ridge or Cherohala Parkways (imho).
We made our way to the Tail of the Dragon: 318 curves in 11 miles. That was a workout, but a complete blast! After that we rode the Blue Ridge Parkway, then Highway 16 through Virginia (the "Back of the Dragon") and West Virginia, followed by Highway 555 in Ohio.
All told, I rode more than 7,000 miles to get to Pennsylvania, through 19 States, in about a month. I'm tired, but ready to explore what Pennsylvania has to offer. More than that, I am ready for Catherine and the kids to join me.
Cheers,
Marc
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