Yesterday...bad wifi makes it hard to blog

Start: Rapid City, South Dakota

End: Devils Tower, Wyoming

Distance: 197 miles (315 KM)

Gas: Keystone, South Dakota 3.721 GAL @ $3.850 TOTAL $14.33; Spearfish, South Dakota, 2.423 gal @ 3.579 Total $8.67

Campsite: KOA Campground, Devils Tower, Wyoming

Cost $41.51 per site; a small KOA campground located at the base of Devils Tower. Nice facilities; nice hot showers, laundry, hydro & water and restaurant. The lot was treed and quiet. They play the movie Close Encunters each night as that's where part of it was filmed.

We got up early, did laundry and took advantage of the all-you-can-eat pancakes held by the KOA. When we were ready to leave,my bike would not start as the battery was dead. I must have left it on too long, without it running and with my trailer still hooked up, so the lights of the bike and trailer drained the battery. A camper had booster cables, so we were able to get it going quickly. We then drove to a Mennards and bought a cheap set of cables to keep on the bike...just in case.

We then went down Hwy 16 to Keystone so we could visit to Mount Rushmore. Keystone is a quaint little town that is bustling with souvenirs and little eating spots. We stopped for some gas and then headed towards Mount Rushmore. 

It was a nice scenic ride to the park. We paid $11 parking and then walked up to the viewing area for the carvings.

The carvings were very impressive. The detail and the smoothness of the faces was amazing. The faces of George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln looked almost lifelike.

Interestingly, 90% of the rock was removed from the mountain by using dynamite and then airpowered chisels smoothed out the features. It took from 1927 to 1941 to complete the carvings.

From Mount Rushmore, we took a small road thru the Black Mountains as we headed towards Deadwood and Spearfish. The road was well paved, very windy and seemed to cross a railway line at least 20 times as it weaved thru the mountains and forests.

We got onto Hwy 35 and headed north to Deadwood. The road was very windy and went thru the beautiful Black Hills. Once we got to Deadwood, we were not really impressed too much. This was a town that had historical connections to Calamity Jane, Buffalo Bill, Jesse James and others. The town had a beautiful cobble stone town centre, but the rest was too modern and busy. 

We decided to head toward Devils Tower by taking Hwy 14 thru the Spearfish Canyon. This was an amazing ride as we went up and down very high hills and deep valleys as we went thru the canyon. At one point, we went down a 7 degree hill for 2.5 miles and another time we went down a 7 degree hill for 3 miles. Needless to say, we went in low gear and let the engine to a lot of the braking.

As we weaved thru the Spearfish Canyon, we saw a lot of fly fishermen, tossing their lines in the little river that ran thru the canyon. It is hard to describe how high and rocky the face of the canyon went as we rode thru.

Once we got to Spearfish, we were officially out of the Black Mountains and then headed west towards Wyoming. Wyoming is very hilly with a lot of cattle. There are a lot of buttes, hills and valleys. I didn't see one lake. This is real cowboy country.

We went down the Interstate 90 and cut off at Sundance and headed for the Devils Tower.

The ride was very nice, going thru the rolling hills. The rock face cuts along the valleys are a bright red due to the high iron content in the soil.

As we approached Devils Tower, you could see it from quite a distance. Legend has it that a bear was attacking 8 girls and the girls started praying to save them, so the rock shot up towards the sky and that's how the Big Dipper constellation was formed, each star being a girl. The large strokes lining the tower were said to be the claws of the bear trying to snag the girls. 

The modern version has the tower being the dome of a volcano and over the millenium, the rock and debris around it eroded downward 1.5 miles from it's original top, leaving just the cooled lava dome exposed. 

We got here late, so will need to take some good photos tomorrow.

The tower was a highlight of the movie Close Encounters...out of this world!