Motel 6.. a few hundred miles further west... tired.

Wow, it was getting sooooo cold when I finished that last post that I could hardly type. So some of the stories from the last post were somewhat truncated. Now, sitting inside Motel 6, in a little town called Sheridan, nice and warm, I'll try to complete the tales -- no additional pics here though, after dark my little camera phone just doesn't operate at all.

The little town / drug store:
We were really caught off guard with this one. Like I said below, there were signs all over the sides of the road as soon as we entered the state, but they were all cheesy, touristy kinds of signs. We really didn't even plan to stop, but we were on about 1/4 tank at the time we passed by and decided 'what the heck, a little food and a short stop, so long as they don't ask for money to get in the door!'

Segway -- there was a little 'ghost town' that we'd stopped at to fill up a couple hours earlier -- $12 bucks per adult admission. It was a pretty cool little town, but not really authentic. The buildings were authentic, moved from all over the state apparently, but the town they had setup was fake..... and at $12 bucks per it just wasn't worth the (what looked from the outside to be about) 30 minute detour.

Anyway, so this town was a total surprise, a little oasis you might say. They whole town closes down for about 3 months each winter (Jan, Feb, March). We spoke with a very nice Mother and daughter who owned a coffee shop (best coffee on the whole trip so far) who said that they usually travel during that time. The daughter had just come back from a tour of Austria and had a Salzburg t-shirt on. She told us about the 'Sound of Music' tour that she went on, and all about the classical music history of the area. Very nice folks.

That place was FULL to the brim with old-west pictures and history. If any of you are ever out here, plan to stop for a while... well worth it, despite the 'touristyness' of the place. Oh... I mentioned earlier the town's population, and how nearly half the town works at 'Wall Drug' (basically the town IS Wall Drug).... turns out they also have a great deal of housing and hire about 60 college students during the summer months to help with the extra business! Not a bad place to spend the summer - great hiking in the badlands.

Oh.. the wind through this place is FIERCE -- so much so that it could almost support me leaning into it! One had to be careful opening and closing doors (especially my truck doors) depending on how they were situated. That wind is mostly due to the lack of trees. There are basically only large rolling hills as far as the eye can see in any direction, no trees or other abrupt changes in landscape.

All I can say about this area is CONSTANT PANORAMIC ECSTASY! Even through eastern Wyoming (at least as far as we got while it was daylight) the view has always been amazing.

Driving at night is also crazy... I got into it a bit, but it's worth mentioning again -- DARK -- Dave and I were joking that it reminded us of that scene at the end of Terminator 2 where they are rolling down the dark highway saying something like 'the future is not set... we control our destinies... blah blah blah'. It's so dark out that when your headlights hit reflectors, you can literally see the beam reflect back onto the road! Weather patterns and distant cities can usually be seen from almost 70 miles.

Heh, speaking of weather -- it started to rain on us while we were at Mt. Rushmore. Thankfully we'd already finished looking at the monument. They have a little trail that runs around it, with signs that talk about each of the presidents depicted, the workers, the original designer and his son, and some of the methods used in it's construction... I never knew that there was a 'hall of records' behind / underneath the monument. Original plans called for a large 800 foot staircase to allow public access... but that section was never fully completed. The hall was meant to store important documents, but has never really been used for that purpose, nor is it viewable or in any way accessible by the public.

Oh well... off to Devils Tower.....

... which was MUCH cooler. In my opinion (and Dave's) the coolest stop thus far. There was a small entry fee, $12 I think, and a long road that wound around the base of the tower up to a visitor's center (which had just closed when we arrived). While it is on sacred Native American ground, they do allow you to 'boulder hop' to the base...... these boulders are HUGE by the way and you could spend a fair part of the day just climbing about on these.... going any further however (up the spire) requires registration (and one heck of a constitution... 876 feet straight up!)

Oh, as we approached the tower we noticed LOTS of prairie dogs along either side of the road. We had hoped to get some pictures of the little fellas, but because we were later arriving at the tower than expected we wanted to get up and hike around it first... and the dogs were all gone by the time we descended.

Leaving Mt. Rushmore we wound up connecting back up with I90 W just before branching off onto (don't quite remember if it was 14 or 16). Had we been a bit more intelligent we would have unloaded the bikes somewhere around I90 and rode up to the tower. The roads leading there were incredible, all banked just right, fantastic elevation changes (and the fees for parking were cheaper for motorcycles!). But, since it had been raining (100+ miles behind us) and it was a bit chilly out, we were glad that we didn't. Especially after the sun went down because the temperature really dropped off!

Anywho, it's Dave's birthday tomorrow.... so I'm going to let him sleep in a bit, maybe 'till 9 or so (he's notorious for sleeping until mid-afternoon if left un-stirred). Happy Birthday Bro!