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After sleeping as late as I could, I rolled out of town around 10:30 heading north towards South Dakota. The roads were pretty chewed up with construction heading out of Denver but I made decent time and soon found myself crossing into Wyoming. I stopped for lunch in Cheyenne and spent an hour or so just basking in the sun outside a coffee shop. Nice litte town, Cheyenne. Very relaxed; of course I don't live there so what the hell do I know except that I was happy to be alive sitting on the sidewalk drinking juice doing absolutely nothing for a little while.
After minor adjustments to the mounting hardware on the new windshield I moved on taking route 85 northeast towards Sturgis, South Dakota. Is it Wyoming that's called "the Big Sky country"? It must be. The roads off the main highway are a picture of desolate beauty. Windswept high plains and gently rolling hills. The roads go on and on in wide sweeping miles long, slow curves. Occassionally seeing a farm or a passing tourist, this is a very serene stretch of the world. Wyoming's got a deceptive veneer; it's beautiful in the summer and I can only imagine the hell this region must be on windy Febraury mornings.
Near nightfall I had travelled from Colorado, through part of Wyoming and into Custer, South Dakota. I reached the outskirts of Custer as the sun was setting. I had really wanted to make it to Sturgis that day so I pushed on up 385 out of Custer. The last amber rays of the day were slanting across my path as I drove past the partly finished Crazy Horse National monument. That is really going to be something when finished. For now it's more of an enormous curiosity.
Night fell rapidly and I was only able to just get a sense of how gorgeous this country must be, the Black Hills of South Dakota. Shortly after passing Crazy Horse, I turned around realizing that I was becoming dangerously fatigued and headed back into Custer looking for a room. I found one at a nice little motel. This place was a bit unnerving as it was swarming with State Troopers and I was riding on my drivers permit. Many of the fires that made the evening news this summer (2000) were centered nearby and every Cop and Firefighter that could be spared had taken his patrol car or firetruck and rolled into Custer to fight the wildfires. In the parking lot the Harley was the only civilian vehicle in sight. And me with no MC license and a 2 gallon gas tank strapped to my bike. I felt like the biggest fool target ever and vowed to get rid of the gas tank ASAP lest someone take a close look at me and decide I might be a psycho biker arsonist.
I put the gas tank in a garbage bag and chained it to the front wheel of the bike trying to look as responsible as I could in the process. It must have worked because no one noticed me. That or maybe in a region of the country where you can walk around with a loaded pistol strapped to your thigh people just give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not a damned fool until you prove to them otherwise.
I had the goal of making it to Albany, NY by Labor Day, September 5th and given the rate I was going I wasn't sure I'd make it. The new job started 9/11 and I wanted at least a few days to get reacquainted with my family and then a day or two in the Boston area before work started. As I leaned up against the motel counter filling out the registration card I looked to my left and there was a plaque giving the milage from Custer to various destinations. The first line of the plaque said: "Distance to Albany, NY - 1403 miles". OK. 1400 miles, 5 days, yeah, I could do that.
I walked down the street to the Skyway Restaurant. As I sat there eating and looking at the photos on the wall I realized why this place seemed somehow familiar. Have you ever seen the old photo of the waitress standing in a restaurant next to a reclining full grown buffalo? Well, this was the place and the pictures were on the wall to prove it. Apparently in the early 1960's a local had adopted a baby Buffalo which he raised as a pet. One evening he walked into the place and asked if he could bring his buffalo in with him. Well, the rest is American history. Pretty funny stuff.
I got up early the next morning and headed off to see Mount Rushmore. |
