South Dakota Trip Pics

[BuzzKill]

3,239 miles, 1,250+ pictures, 10 days, 9 states, 4 people, 3 bikes, 1 long but fun road trip to South Dakota and back!

You can click this link to see a tracker one of the guys used. Choose the 2 week option to get the idea of how we went.
http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=1e144c73ff571b071

Here's some pics of the highlights.


The boys getting an early start to the trip.


Havin some slider burgers in Salina KS at Cozy Inn Hamburgers.


The Line Up.


The next morning.  Come on guys, we're already packed!


The worlds largest ball of twine!  And a creepy guy...


Our Lady with The Lady.  Neat little statue in on a back road Kansas.


Our Ladys with The Lady.


All of us together.


Iron horses in the corral.


Had to get a pic without that Harley holding us back...


We actually had to push the Harley out of the gravel.  On his defense, he is pretty short.


The bikes at Boot Hill in Ogallala Nebraska at sundown.


Made it to South Dakota!


Our motel in Custer had a covered bike parking.  The Chief Motel.  I would definately recommend it to anyone wanting to stay in the area.  Stay 3 nights, get 4th free!  There's actually 3 Valks under there!  We met that person in Rapid Springs earlier that day and then we found them in our spots!  This was taken on the last night.  Our 3 bikes were the only ones there the rest of the time we were there.  Though it was during the week.


Here is Emerald with some of the scenery.


South Dakota traffic jam.  We got a little closer than I was really comfortable with.  There were 2 at one point that were keeping a REAL close eye on me and even started to inch toward me at some point.


Some of the wildlife we encountered.


We were dodging a storm in the covered parking at Mount Rushmore when we saw this.  We found the end of the rainbow!  No gold. 


Emerald infront of Devils Tower Wyoming.


Us infront of Devils Tower.


Met this Valk and rider/co-rider up in the parking lot there. 


Discussing our route back.  Those 2 guys had GPS's.  I had to refresh my map "program" manually (refold the map in the tankbag).  Strangely I lead prolly 80% of the trip. 


The bikes at Wall's Drugs in the Badlands.  Sadly we never made it into the badlands as the other Valk had a slow air leak in the front tire valve stem.  That was the only real issue we had.  (Cause the Harley only had 1500 miles on it when we started! Hehe. )


Attack of the Giant Jackalope!


The Green Dragon vs The Green Dinosaur! 


Passing through Leadville Colorado.  12,095 feet up!



Stopped at Independence Pass


Met this Valk in Idaho Springs Colorado.  They had been camping out most of their trip, but decided on a little bit of luxury that night.


Rolled 35,000 miles on day 9 just inside Texas.


Some hungry men, almost home.  And no, we didn't even think of trying it.  The Chicken Fried Steak is good though.


The last morning, just a few more hours....

[98 T]

Awesome pics!! thanks for posting....  I'm sure you have a ton of great memories too!

[Valkpilot]

Looks like you had a great trip.  Thanks for posting all the pics!

[HayHauler]

MAN, makes me want to retire and ride.... or something like that...

Great trip report!

Hay 
Jimmyt

[laserpat]

GREAT PICS!!! I was in a lot of the same places in Aug.

[Disco]

Thanks for the pics, Randy!   

[flamingobabe #44]

Thanks for sharing the pics....It's always good to take a trip....

[Kaiser]

Looks like you guys had a blast!  Thanks for sharing.

[godfire]

Great pics, and it looks like you kept that woman in line! 

But., I didn't see any cookies..... A ride that long and no cookies.....???

WTF

[Red Diamond]

Looks like a wonderful trip, your link does not work, maybe you could post your route. I'd love to do that one.

[SideCar]

Great to see you guys tonight at the FR meeting. Thanks for your help!

Gary

[NCGhostrider]

Great pics and looks like you had a great time!!   I am envious...haven't been able to get away this year. 

[BuzzKill]

Basically took 35 North to Salina KS, then to Ogallala NB, then backroads to Custer.  Stayed in Custer and spent 3 days riding in that area. 
First day was around the Custer State Park area, up to Stugis, and back down through Deadwood.
Second day we went through Lead and Spearfish Canyon up to Montana and back down to Devils Tower, then back down though Sundance.
Third day we took the highway to Wall and stopped at Walls Drug and were going to go though the Badlands, but we has a small tire problem we had to go back to Rapid City to get fixed.  So afterwards we went on a couple more roads in the park that we havent been on.  Great riding roads, just gotta watch for the wildlife.
After that we went backroads as far as we could before we had to get on the interstate to go down south to Loveland CO (just north of Denver) and went west to hit the Peak to Peak Highway down to Idaho Springs.
From there we followed the mountains south, took a detour to Independence Pass before continuing on to Red River NM.
Then we took the long way around to get to Taos, stopped at the Pueblos, and took another detour to drive across the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge before heading down to Las Vegas NM and took the highway to Amarillo.
From there we just followed 287 all the way to Decatur before splitting off.

If you want more details just email me and I can get more specific.  The woman requested travel info online for most of the states we were going to and we got packets that included maps from each.  The South Dakota one came with a great map of the Custer area with common scenic routes preplanned and one of them even had a color coded map of the same area that listed the motorcycle skill recommended for the roads! 

[Red Diamond]

Thanks for posting your travel info. Mother-in-Law was hospitalized Wednesday, we were scheduled to leave this A.M (Friday) for West Coast trip. If she is released today, will leave Saturday morning, if not, take a shorter trip to be back for antique fair in Brenham on the 30th-Oct. 2. We would still have time left to do your trip. Thanks again.