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Monday July 22, 2013
We were all ready to go this morning when duty called. I had to take a call from a client so we about a half hour later than we thought. The weather was nice so Jon and I just wore jeans, no riding pants. We headed South on I-15 for about 10 miles. We then turned East on Montana Rt212, a nice secondary highway. The roads were in good condition with only one 5 mile stretch of construction. It was amazing that we were riding through rolling praries that were at almost 4000 feet of elevation. We rode for about 115 miles and stopped at this cool little corner store for gas. There was another group of riders that pulled in after us going the opposite direction. They were riding out to Yellowstone Natl Park from Pennsylvania. One of the guys was on a chopper with his wife. Can you imagine sitting on the back of a chopper for all of that time?
Another 50 miles or so and it was time to turn South again. The GPS told me to turn right but the highway number seemed wrong from the map last night. When I stopped to check the GPS I realized the highway number we were looking for was a Wyoming highway (on the atlas map) and we were still in Montana. We turned South where the GPS said and within a couple of miles were in Wyoming and had the right route #.
Once into Wyoming the roads changed dramatically. We were now riding through hills with curves and trees. Beautiful riding. After a few more turns we arrived at the Devil's Tower. It really is an amazing landscape feature. We didn't bother riding up to the tourist area. We did however patronize the gift shop. The Ice Cream tasted really good. I also bought some trinkets for friends.
The ride from there to Sturgis was about an hour. We checked into the hotel at very reasonable rates. Wait a couple of weeks, they'll triple. It was only 12:30pm and Jon had been to Sturgis before, so we decided to go check out the town. We stopped in at The Knuckle Saloon for a couple of beers. Boy were they cold! Since it was lunch time we ordered the daily special. It was a bacon cheesburger with all of the usual trimmings but with an extra twist. There is peanut butter on it. It was actually pretty good.
After lunch we took a quick ride around town just to check it out. Jon led us out of town the wrong direction to find the Buffalo Chip campground, but the detour had some really nice curves to ride. The solid yellow lines were painted at least 3 times the normal width. I guess they wanted to make sure everyone understood that there would be NO PASSING! We turned around and once back in town I checked the GPS for campgrounds and there it was. A mere 4.5 miles in the opposite direction. No matter, we headed out and found the Full Throttle Saloon. The largest biker bar around.
We continued on and found the Buffalo Chip camping area. Pretty cool place. This made all thirsty again so we went back to The Knuckle for another beer (or two).
After some really good quesadias the weather threatened to unload on us, so we headed back to the hotel. We made it just in time as it started to dribble on us as we pulled in. Later on there were severe weather warnings for the area.
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Copyright (C) 2004-2013, Larry Manka. all rights reserved.
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