Travelling Tales - Part 15

Next stop on our trip was Sturgis, the mecca for Harley owners every year in the first week of August.  In reality its a little nondescript place the rest of the year.  It has a good dealership with plenty of bargains!

After Sturgis we headed along to Deadwood, the ride in was a bit sad, a large deer shot across the road in front of us straight into a van coming in the opposite direction, it went up and over the roof, clipped the crash barrier.  The van stopped but we weren't sure the deer survived. This really upset us, but actually if we had been a few seconds earlier we may not be here to tell the tale. Deadwood -was awful full of casinos and not much else, a quick look and we were on our way.



Next stop Custer State Park - having first negotiated the Iron Mountain Road, known locally as the pigs tail, twists upon twists, luckily for me there were lots of cars so it slowed Peter down.  Lots of buffalo, prong horned deer, and prairie dogs.  We had planned to visit Crazy Horse Monument but decided not to bother as they charged to go in and you could actually see it from the road - cheap I know! We also didn't bother to go back to see Mount Rushmore as we had seen that before.  Back in the park we took the Needles Highway - lots more twists and turns, road going through rocks - Peter had a grin from ear to ear, I had my knee brakes on - we ended the day in Rapid City.



July 8th - more buffalo, more prong horns - our destination was Mitchell via the Badlands National Park, and Wall Drug - an amazing place, lots of things to look at and poke around in, food too. It was a lovely ride through the park, its a bit like Canyonlands and the Painted Desert, lots of hills and plains. Mitchell was a long drive but it was warm and sunny.



















A misty start in Mitchell but we checked out the Corn Palace - its basically a building covered in heads of maize, corn and rye.  The theme changes each year its very interesting, well worth the visit and its free..







Dealership stop at Sioux Falls - neat Harley cover!  More bits for the bike purchased.



Over night in Council Bluff, really nothing to say other than its not somewhere I'd stay again.  Tomorrow the Bridges of Madison County