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CHIK and FURBMAN'S Big Adventure
Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway (14A)
After quite an eventful 48 hours on the road, familiar sights and signs leading us closer to home were a sight for sore eyes. As we pulled around our corner and into the driveway, it seemed as though we were just pulling out yesterday. We had fit so much into the last 11 days that it seemed as though it was one looooooooooooooong day.
Coming home from work on Wednesday had a great feeling of freedom to it. We would be in Sturgis in two days, and nothing in New York mattered for the next two weeks. Whatever was pending would pend, and whatever existed would exist just fine until we returned. In light of my recent hospitalization and my kidney still acting up, we decided to trailer. Craig had done some routine maintenance and replaced the tires last weekend, so we knew it was ready. We’d just recently returned from a family camping trip that looped us down to North Carolina’s outer banks and back up the coast, so we knew where most of the camping gear was. We located whatever else we needed, packed our personal gear, and loaded all of it along with the bike onto the trailer.
The ride out to Sturgis
was great, the further west we got, the more beautiful the scenery became. Day one and 15 hours took us into Wisconsin where we took some sleep time and finished up the ride the next day. We covered Iowa and South Dakota on day two. Wall Drug does some heavy advertising! We saw signs for Wall from the Stateline all the way out to Rapid City. That almost covers the whole state. Rapid City brought is within about an hour, from Spearfish,
which is where home would be for the next 7 days.
We had spoken on the telephone with Jo, of Jo's Field of Dreams
several times, and we couldn’t wait to meet her. Field of Dreams was no Buffalo Chip, HOG Heaven or Eagles Landing. She promised it to be enjoyable, quiet, friendly, and limited in the amount of campers she would have staying with her. When we reached exit 10, we got out the directions and saw we were just less than a mile from camp. When we pulled in, there was Jo with her knights sitting at the round table. She greeted us at the entry, which was also her driveway, and showed us around. There wasn’t much to see, she was right, it was small, and quaint, homey and clean. We had made the right choice. We set up camp and decided Blue would remain on the trailer until morning.
Morning came quick, and so arrived dilemma number one. How do we get the bike off the trailer without a ramp? We had a ramp when we left New York, as a matter of fact, we had a ramp when we left Wisconsin. How do you lose a steel ramp off of a trailer and not hear it? It mustn’t have been on my driving shift ~ Jo had been doing rallies for the past eight years, and she was prepared for this sort of thing, so out came a ramp, and down came the bike. Problem solved.
Day one was kept as an easy one since we had been on the road in the car for so many hours. First stop, Exit 32, Downtown Sturgis. It looked just like every official rally picture I had ever seen. The venders were jam packed into every space that may have been available on and around Main Street. The heat seemed unbearable at 103 degrees. Little did we know we would see 115 by Wednesday. We went into Lead and Deadwood that day as well. Deadwood was cool, an original 1800’s western town that has been altercated into a tourist type casino town. Before we knew it, the sun had set and we headed back to camp. That was it for Sturgis, it was like going to the fair, you have to go at least once. Now it was time to tour the beautiful Black Hills
of South Dakota. I noticed the Sturgis Yamaha dealer off the interstate on the way in, so I got a stop in there out of the way on the way back to camp. After a real campers dinner, we met some of our neighbors and headed off to bed. Sunday would be a busy day.
We read our map as we had coffee in the morning. Jo offered coffee, but Craig always had a fresh pot waiting when I got up. We decided to do Custer Park, Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore that day, and hoped to end the day at the hot springs. By days end it would be reaching 106 and we didn’t think hot springs would be too refreshing at that point, but we did fit the rest of the tour in. Crazy horse was amazing. We receive literature on it at home, but to see it in real life size is amazing. The museum was quite informative, and I found out that it is the first National Monument of this country. Mount Rushmore was beautiful to see as well, although we refused to pay $8.00 to park. It’s crazy how everybody gets in on the action. This is a federally funded monument and they are charging us to view it. There was a free parking area, but it was mysteriously closed that day. From there we went on to Custer and drove the Needles Highway. I was in awe the whole day. I could never pick a favorite place or event from this trip. The view of the rolling plains, prairies and mountainous terrain is absolutely breathtaking, and the fields of Sunflowers along the interstate was only something you saw in a magazine. I did particularly enjoy the Needles and it’s curvy windy paths. One rider had stopped to take a picture and,………………..oooooops! Forgot to pick up the kickstand, and caught it on a hairpin. He fell off of needles and caught himself on a tree about ten feet down. We were stopped at “the eye” when we saw an ambulance approach. I still can’t believe it fit through the tunnel in the rock.
The guy has a great story to tell if he’s willing to admit the kickstand thing. He fell off the needles!! But driving through Custer brought Home on the Range to mind. The buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play. We weren’t having much luck with the animals. Craig got “nipped” by a prairie dog, and the buffalo didn’t understand my gestures of friendship.
Monday was brutal. We headed out to Wall that day and intended to do the Badlands, but by time we finished up shopping and having lunch in Wall
, the temperature was at 110, and 115 in the desert. We filled our water and headed in. We didn’t get far when we turned out of the Badlands and headed back to Wall for some cover. Craig became ill, and we thought he was suffering heat stroke, he had all of the symptoms. We took our time getting back to camp that day, stopping at rest areas along the way for water, an air conditioned building, and even to play in the sprinklers. We made a stop in Rapid City that evening for the HOG reception at the civic center. They gave out a nice pin and had lots of great stuff to reveal to the public, like their new water-cooled bike, YUK! They even fed us. It had cooled down a bit by time we left the civic center, so we headed back to camp, and when we got there, that’s where we stayed.
Tuesday brought plans to head further west into Wyoming to see Devil’s Tower. Again, the scenery along the way was breathtaking. The land got flatter and more colorful the further west you traveled, and it was becoming apparent that the scenery would almost always become your terrain.
Devil’s Tower was astonishing, there were climbers on the massive mountainous figure, and again, the temperature was rising. We walked around the tower through the park and headed out through Sundance, where we stopped for lunch. We headed back towards camp and called it a day for the sightseeing. The temperatures were
soaring at 115. Tuesday night the air was still and sultry, until about 5AM when the winds starting picking up and Jo was about with binoculars. She was just missed by a tornado last year, and was making sure all of her kids would be safe. Jo was like a mom away from home. She took time to talk to each of her campers every morning so she had an idea of where they would be going, and took head counts as we straggled in at night. She made sure everyone had her number and made you feel real comfortable about calling should you get into a jam, some sort of trouble, or just in case you needed directions. Jo's brother is the Mayor of Spearfish, we did pick the right place to call home for that week. The winds died down as the sun started to show itself, and we were going to be lucky enough to have another great day for sightseeing without any rain.
We headed into Deadwood
for a casino buffet for breakfast and then into Lead for a tour of the Broken Boot Goldmine, and to see the monstrous Homestead Goldmine, which will be closing it’s doors in December of this year. Craig was taking on the heat exhaustion symptoms once again, and we stopped to rest. We stayed put in shade for about an hour and finished off the water we had. We decided to take it slow and head back to camp, it was only about noon. We got as far as Deadwood and ducked into town for some shelter from the sun and some water. When he felt we could move again, we did, right through Spearfish Canyon and home. We spent a nice relaxing day at the campsite, got to know a few people who were there, and spent some more time talking with Jo, you never get tired of talking to Jo. Evening set in and we headed out for a steak dinner at Mad Mary’s, then we came home and watched the lightening and thunderstorms across the Wyoming border from our campgrounds. We thought for sure we would get a piece of them and get some relief from the heat, but it wasn’t happening, we watched as huge black patches made their way past us giving off great shows of lightning strikes in the distance. We were going to get a solid week’s vacation without rain, which is what you would typically love, but rain and any form of relief from the heat would have been quite welcome, and almost inviting at this point. Although it’s typically dry in SD, even the natives were complaining of the unusual humidity they were experiencing this summer. Tomorrow would be our last day and we would get the Badlands in even if we had to take the air-conditioned car.
Waking up knowing it was our last day was tough. The week had passed by too quickly, although we had covered so much territory, it just didn’t seem like long enough. We had our coffee and breakfast at camp as usual, and got an early start, but there was just no way around beating the heat. By 7AM, it felt as though the sun had never set the day before. We decided to take the Western route into the Badlands from the Rapid City side, and not go into the Wall area today, this would get us out of the desert earlier. We drove for a while, looking at the terrain and the beautiful lay of the land, we entered Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and drove for miles seeing very few homes and farms along the way. It’s heartbreaking to see what the Indians are left with. The land is beautiful, but there is so much of it, and their space is so small in comparison. We drove past corn fields, and many, many sunflower fields, what a beautiful site that is to see the sunny tops growing in straight arrow rows reaching for the sun. We picked some fresh sage from the roadside and headed for Scenic. Scenic is a town, it’s on the map, and it’s probably smaller than your nearest strip-mall. It’s an original 1800’s town, located on the reservation, and owned by one woman. There are a few commercial buildings along the road, by commercial I mean original 1800 barn-like structures where business is conducted.
This is pretty much Scenic from one end to the other. We visited whatever there was that Scenic had to offer, The main building, where the town’s head kept shop can best be described as a broken down barn that housed an array of used to new items from clothes to candy bars and animal skulls to alcohol. It was an experience. We headed out of Scenic and finished our tour through the badlands.
We stopped at the Super-8 just off I-90 in Sturgis where all the major companies had set up their new unveilings and were hoping to maybe get in a demo ride, but they were closing by time we arrived.
Throughout the week, ever since we left home you saw bikes. Bikes packed down, bikes packed down on trailers, closed trailers, campers pulling trailers, you were running with a pack. We saw people along our route that we had picked up with back in Ohio, and the closer you got to the hills, the more bikes you saw. Cars and four wheeled vehicles were the minority, and often I wondered who the real tourists were, the visitors, or the natives. People were friendly and welcoming of the rally and the people it brought to South Dakota. They came into towns with us to watch us, and they sat out on their porches in the evenings to see what they could see. Everyone shared stories and was curious as to where you came from. Everyone was sporting Black Hills Rally shirts, and everyone was selling them, even the supermarkets. Waitresses served in rally shirts and cashiers checked in them.
Friday morning was here and it was time to load the trailer once again. Blue was tired, but she once again proved herself a great ride. She put in 12 hour days in exhausting heat, and carried us home safely for the duration of yet another road adventure. We pushed her on and tied her down. We said our goodbye’s and got teary-eyed with Jo and headed to the market to get some things for the cooler before hitting the road.
Somewhere in small town USA, Newton, Iowa to be exact, Craig took ill again. We took him to a local ER where we met Dr. Dunstin Smith, who seemed to be all of about 13, typical Doogie Howser. After doing an EKG and ruling out a heart attack, Dr. D administered a shot of Mylanta and sent us on our way. I did a lot of the driving that day, and at about midnight, I had had it, I was road weary and homesick and didn’t want to be in the car anymore. We needed to sleep, so we did. We were on the road again by 6AM, and about 5 hours from home when BAM, we met Vicky. Craig woke me and said, “we just had an accident”, as we both looked behind us and saw a car driving in circles on the interstate in PA. The other vehicle was merging into traffic off of an exit ramp and let our truck pass, but hit the trailer wheel. She ripped the whole front end of her car off. Vicky was about 80 or so, coming from church and going to see a friend in the hospital. She had only a purse and a silk scarf with her. We changed the tire, and did a great job on Vicky’s car with the duct tape. It was a perfect match with her silver grey car! It was starting to seem that the rainbow we slid through back in Iowa was a gateway to our very own yellow brick road ~
As we pulled around our corner and into the driveway, it seemed as though we were just pulling out yesterday. We had fit so much into the last 11 days that it seemed as though it was one looooooooooooooong day. I just wanted to see my kid, my cats and although I loved South Dakota and all of our road trips, There’s no place like home, wherever that may be. We got to the bottom of Craig’s symptoms after a few days of R&R at Westchester, and he is on a road to recovery. No more vacations for us this year, it would seem every time we return home from one, someone lands in the hospital, and the way things would have it, Raymond would be next. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about our trip and hope you someday find your way to the Black Hills.
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