HOME!

Sorry for no posts the last couple of days if you have been following...I will update tomorrow...but for now...made it home tonight (Monday) at 11:05pm and 4275.9 miles door to door. Got a little behind and put in some late nights coming home.

One guy riding with us hit a deer Sunday night in southern Ohio so we stayed with him as the hospital checked him out and helped him get situated and get a rental so he could get home today also. Got to bed around 2:30am Monday morning and got up at 7:30 to go back out to the scene and find his camera..it was there laying by the road in the camera bag...good as new! After waiting for a rental and cashing in a favor or two with the rental company, we got him a truck to drive home and he has made it back to NC. Quick recovery to you Mike.


More later to summarize the whole trip...lots of fun, lots of riding, lots of new friends, lots of old friendships renewed, not so much rain really.

Coming Home - the first two days

Read this and you will understand why no posts yesterday.



We left Custer heading back to NC around 9am local time. Amy, Mike, Ron and Tammy, and I were traveling together taking the northern route back.



As we approached Rapid City, we knew the Mike and Ron and Tammy were not able to make it to Sturgis when they planned to go because of weather, so we took a little detour of around 70 miles to go west again before heading east. It was good because we spent probably an hour walking around and seeing what was what in Sturgis. We then started heading east on I-90. Amy and I had not done the Badlands National Park or Wall Drug (the others had) so we decided to do that whole thing on the way home. By the time we got on the interstate to head toward Minnesota it was after 3pm......no way we were gonna make it so I canceled the hotel reservations. We made it to Mitchell SD (yep, never even made it out of the state) and after trying 5-6 hotels, we finally found a Motel6 with rooms around 11:30.......that was almost 14 hours on the bike but only around 300 miles.



Saturday - We rode HARD. Lots of interstate to begin with..then we took highway 16 through Wisconsin and saw a lot of nice mountain/hill scenery. Took a long time, but we finally made it to Des Plaines (O'hare Area in Chicago) around 10:30.....somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 miles....and 12-13 hours in the saddle. We stopped by the Corn Palace in Mitchell this morning too.

The plan is to make it to Huntington WV tomorrow...only around 380 miles.....I think we will try to go through some nice mountain roads.

I am planning to try to do review the whole trip with pictures at some point..right now gonna sleep.

Custer Day 4

Just a quick update from the last full day in Custer.

Road with a few folks from the KawaNOW staff this morning down to the Custer State Park Lodge to make sure everything was ready for tonight's finale' dinner. We then decided to tackle Needles Highway again at a little faster pace this time and road into Keystone for Lunch. While we were inside, the bottom fell out a couple times and it rained pretty hard.

After lunch it cleared and we took off through Iron Mountain Road and the famous 'pigtail' bridges. We actually did them a few times and videoed them to put together later. Saw a bunch of buffalo, antelope, whitetails, and various other wildlife. Found out a couple of these guys can ride the twisties with anyone.....I suspected as much but it was nice to verify that some of them can throw these big 800+ pound motorcycles through the curves.....I drug the floorboards a bunch over the last few days...lots of fun!

The banquet/dinner was great at the Lodge at the State Park. Food was great and was good to see everyone for one last time before leaving. The plan was to gather at the Bavarian for a drink and then speak with everyone, but I think the whole group was really tired.....instead, 6 or 7 of us went back to the Purple Pie Place and I got that peach pie with ice cream. After that, everyone was toast.

We leave from Custer Friday morning and plan to hit the Badlands National Park on the way to Fairmont MN where we will stay tonight. I hope I can pick up a USB cord somewhere on the way and download some more photos tonight.

Looks like we are about a day behind some weather going through that area so I hope that holds and we have good weather for the ride back.

Later.

Custer Day 3

OK...day 3.

First of all, if you've been following along...check out the older posts...I was able to borrow a USB cord from MarkG (thanks Mark!) and get my pics downloaded and have added them to the previous entries.

So there was nothing officially planned this morning so 5 of us decided to ride up to Sturgis. Yeah, that's where the big rally is in a few weeks. There will be 1000's of Harley riders there and 100's of other brand riders. Even now there were bikes all over the place. It was pretty much a 90 mile or so run up there...a few minutes in a shop and down town....everyone bought a little something and then a HUGE thunderstorm started moving in over the mountains. We could see it coming so we saddled up and got out in front of it just barely for the 90 mile run back.

Met at the HQ for the planned afternoon rides which were up to Iron Mountain Road, Needles Road, and through Custer State Park. The roads were pretty curvy and lots of fun to ride on. Nothing really to hard. Amy and I were riding in the back and since we had varying riding skills in the group, we kinda cheated and would drop back when I saw some nice curves and switchbacks coming (on the gps) and we were able to blast through some of them. At one point I was counting the times I drug the floorboards but ended up losing count...it was bunch though!!!!!!! Sherri would have bruised my ribs grabbing on if she was riding with me....she's not the biggest fan of getting that far leaned over or that fast through curves.....but she's gettin' better. Also saw buffalo, wild burros, and a turkey (or was that this morning ???). Anyway we could see Mt. Rushmore on the ride and decided to eat dinner in Hill City and go to the lighting ceremony at Mt. Rushmore tonight. It was pretty impressive...very patriotic. Hard to believe that people actually climbed that mountain and were able to sculpt those images so well. Took way too many pictures there.

Did somewhere around 260 miles today on the bike. We did hear when we got back that one of our members had a little mishap today but he and the bike were just barely banged up and he should be able to ride it back home and both he and the bike are repairable.

Tomorrow there is planned ride through the Badlands. Not sure if I am going on that or not..still pondering...may take of with a few other folks and explore some areas on our own and may take another run at Iron Mtn. road...dunno yet.....anyway, again it's late and my spelling and grammar and punctuation (BRENT !!!!)....so stop texting me and telling me to proof read...I'm too tired......at least you learned something in your writing class this year I guess.

Hope to post up some tomorrow after the finale dinner at the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park.

Custer Day 2

Yeah...its Day 2. I was way too tired to post anything yesterday.

Monday morning we left Ogallala around 8am. I was able to borrow a headlight bulb from Mike and stopped by the NAPA on Monday morning and bought a replacement for him. Actually, I think I like the bulb he gave me better..and they are half the price and from all others that have tried it...it will last much longer.

We picked up our last riders into Custer and it made us 13 strong. The ride from Ogallala to Custer was incredible...through nice hills and lots of scenery. Saw deer, buffalo, all kinds of wildlife. Was a little windy but not too bad to manage.

Got to Custer and went straight to the Rally HQ so Amy could get registration started and we could get a banner up and table set up etc. Was great meeting all the folks I had never met in person before, and also reacquainted with the ones I have been fortunate enough to meet before. We spent a lot of time hanging out in the parking lot and talking and looking at each others bikes.

Checked into the hotel and unloaded all the stuff from the bike and even put stuff in the drawers in the hotel room...I never do that but was tired of living out of saddlebag liners and a tbar bag. Immediately headed down to a local bar/grille in Custer for a few beverages and some food....especially important because I was reminded we never really did stop for lunch on the whole ride up.......had couple beers and the crowd thinned out early..about 9:30. I hung out with a couple guys and had another beer til 10:30 and headed back to the hotel. The best part of this was finding out the pre-established bar/grille was only about 100 yds from the hotel I am staying at so we walked to the bar and from the bar and no bike riding.

Got up this morning (around 6:30 which was great because I had been waking up early on Eastern time all week and getting about 5 hrs of sleep each night)...Checked the weather channel and it looked good for our planned rides today..just a small chance of showers. Got everything packed for the bike that I need for the day..leather jacket (55 degrees this AM)...rain gear....something with carbs in the saddlebag just in case.

We met at the HQ hotel and had a quick safety meeting and off to Devil's Tower in Wyoming (about 260 miles roundtrip). There was another ride today going to the Badlands. We were the bigger ride with 38-40 bikes. For those that don't ride...keeping that many bike together is tough so after checking with the authorities, we found that there were no laws or policies against "blocking". Blocking is when a couple bikes stay in an intersection to stop traffic and let all the bikes stay together as they go through and then the blockers usually go back to the front of the formation to block the next intersection (called leapfrogging). Apologies to all the people that drive cars and think this is ridiculous and there is no right to do this......it's really better for you....you wait a couple minutes and then the bikes are gone and you won't probably ever catch up to them....and if a car gets in the middle of a formation of a bunch of bikes, it's not the safest for the bikes....Anyway....I was one of the blockers. I will just say that catching back up to the front of the formation of all those bikes was a BLAST! You figure out why ...

We did run into several rain showers today so had to put on the rain gear so once on, I usually don't take it off...but I was sure glad I had it. Devil's Tower was way cool to see. It is an old volcano that has eroded away over millions of years....I think it is what Pilot Mountain in NC will look like in about a billion years.

So we got back to the hotel and went to a local restaurant for some dinner.....I drank water all day but must have not had enough...I was really dehydrated and drank about a pitcher and a half of tea.....no beers...too tired... Service SUCKED! They had buffalo and elk but I went for the 16oz rib eye.......it came out and was huge and really good..but, we got no salads (waiter forgot), I got no bread with my meal....everyone at the table had something wrong with their order....so wont be going back there...the waiter's story changed many times as to what the problem was, but after some discussion with the guy in charge we got 50% off our bills...I guess that was OK since the steak was good...but I would not go back to the place after that experience.

After dinner went to the Purple Pie....I guess lots of folks know about it in Custer......Homemade pies and ice cream. Got some Peanut Butter Pie and man was it incredible. Going back tomorrow night for some peach pie that looked really good.....

I am really surprised at how little I have eaten on this trip...I think this was the first big meal so far......I guess I need to get really really worn out and drink a bunch of water all the time!!

Gotta check the weather tomorrow and see what it holds.....That will determine what I do...might make a morning run somewhere and I am supposed to be leading a ride through the Custer State Park if we have enough folks that want to go on that ride. If we don't, I am going to probably go to Mt. Rushmore on one of the other rides.

Ok..its late and I probably have a bunch of misspelled words on this...but I am going to sleep till tomorrow.

Made it to Ogallala

We made it to Ogallala today, about a 490-500 mile day again. We met a Rick and Watchman on the road today at at truckstop by chance so we had 10 bikes running today. It was wet and drizzly in Kansas City this morning so we all geared up in rain suits and hit the road. Got about an hours north on I-26 and it started clearing out and stayed clear through the rest of Missouri, a little run through the corner of Iowa, and most of Nebraska. We did have about 100 miles of drizzle and a little rain but cleared up again about an hour east of Ogallala.

So far we crossed the Ohio River, the Missouri River, and the Mississippi. Took a nice 80-90 mile trek across rural Nebraska off the interstate through farm country that was really nice putting along at 60 mph vs the 70+ mph we have been doing on interstates.

The mileage tally so far is 1499.7 and around 47 gallons of fuel. I burned out the high beam of my headlight today and just discovered it late after dinner. Nothing around Ogallala is open tonight so I will have to buy one somewhere on the way tomorrow and put it in tomorrow night. Will just run with low beam on all day tomorrow.

The GPS thing is really nice, although it lead me to a non-existant BP gas station today along with the 9 bikes following me, but there was another station just off the exit so we were fine. The only thing about having GPS is that you really don't pay a lot of attention to the route you are taking..you just listen to the silly box tell you directions...but it is real nice to know there is a fuel stop coming up in so many miles so you don't stress about fuel.

Custer will be tomorrow after about 260 miles ... Wow, 260 miles is a really short ride.

Will hopefully be able to check in tomorrow after arriving and post some pictures.

Kansas City

Long day today mostly on the Interstate. We did approximately 590 miles today and made it to Kansas City after 8pm. Weather was good for us.. Saw some clouds that looked like they might threaten but never opened up. It was in the low 70s when we rolled into Kansas City and supposed to be in the low 60s in the morning...time to get the coat out and maybe the rain jacket..weather says maybe some showers...we'll just have to see what it looks like in the morning.

We plan on getting started around 7:30...will check in tomorrow and hopefully wont be quite so tired.......less than 500 miles tomorrow...well 490ish but still 100 miles less than today. Dont know if we will do interstate or backroads/state hwys.....Will see what the group thinks in the morning....I prefer the back roads..will add about an hour and a half to the trip, but I HATE riding interstates.....