South Dakota Ride 2009: Thursday, June 18

This was our last day in the Black Hills of South Dakota. :o(

Todd, Scott(Cactus Jack) and I found a restaurant and ate a real breakfast this morning. I was a bit tired of the hotel French toast. The Cattleman makes a good breakfast. Todd and I went up to the Bavarian to meet Jeff, Robert(Trip), Mark, and Daryl (Audiogooroo). Trip didn't get a chance to ride the Needles Highway, so we went by the State Game Lodge where the finale dinner was to be held to make sure all was taken care of and make the ride afterwards. The main lodge is really nice. Our dinner was assigned to a newer lodge right down from the old lodge. Very nice facility. Everything at the lodge was done, so we headed on for our ride. We had a good time checking out the curves and rolling through them. Stopped at the needle again after going through the very narrow tunnel.

Mark, Trip, Jeff, Todd

Not real sure what's going on here. We're at the Needle's Eye.

We were oringally going to run Needles Highway then head out to Wall and the Badlands. When we figured up the mileage, we decided to forego the trip to the Badlands. We decided we would go to Keystone to eat lunch then come back through and ride the Iron Mountain Road to go back to the twisties and the pigtails. Todd and Trip took video of us going through the pigtails. It should be a good little clip. We saw buffalo, deer, and antelope. No donkeys today.

Our finale meal was a real success. The lodge cooked up a meal of ribs, barbecue chicken, baked beans, cole slaw, potato salad, corn bread, watermelon, and brownies. The food was very good. We had some real nice door prizes that we handed out too.

I think everyone really enjoyed themselves at this gathering. I know I sure did. I have ridden 2580 miles since I left home last Thursday. That's a first for me to put that many miles on in just a week. I should clock close to 1900 more on the way home. I'll fill in with Wall Drug and the Badlands later.

ttfn