Day 10 - Sturgis to Winner, South Dakota

Sorry.... this post is a day late because of the poor connection at the motel in Winner, SD.

The road through the canyon south of Sturgis was beautiful and twisty... but easy riding. I think if ever I were to go to Sturgis for the rally, I'd stay in the little town of Deadwood. It appeared clean, geared for the visitor (read that "tourist") and steeped in history.

Out of Deadwood we headed for Mt. Rushmore and even the ride there was pretty. The monument was nicer than what I expected and impressive to say the least. Once we left the monument we headed through the Black Hills, following a lady on a bike from Saginaw, MI. Some of the switchbacks were even more than 180 degrees, they were 270 plus. You go through a one lane tunnel and start into a turn which carries you up over the tunnel through which you just came. There were three of those if memory serves. Although it usually doesn't.

The ride through the Hills was interrupted on several occasions by bison crossing the road. They are cool critters but look as dumb as bricks. There were cars stopped to take pictures, but didn't impede us too much. Not quite as impressive, but cute never the less were the wild burrows that would try to mooch through the car windows if the tourists allow it.

From the Black Hills we headed to Custer park (buffalo there too), and rode Needles Highway. The rock formations were incredible but my camera's memory filled up and I didn't take many pictures.

All of the riding through this area, whether we were in the parks or on the local roads was out of sight. Once we left the are and began our trek east, the roads went straight as a string and the land either flat or rolling.

We traveled through a lot of Indian territory here and the poverty was palpable. In fact we were only 7 miles south of Wounded Knee.

We ran out of steam in Winner, South Dakota in the heart of pheasant hunting land. We saw quite a few prairie chickens, but I'm not completely sure we saw any pheasant. (Some of the chickens might have been hens. They look similar but are skinnier.)

We ate in the bar associated with the motel... the lady said they had the best hamburgers in town... maybe the world. They were large but prepared on a George Forman Grill. They were a bit (quite a bit) on the over done side. All was not lost however as we were amused by two locals. One a rather persistent fly (Charlie thought there were a dozen) and George. George thought he was Jimmy the Greek and kept on betting on a kick boxing show on TV. I don't think he won a bout. By the time we left it was a wonder that George could still stand up. He was knocking brews down at the rate of one a round and we watched about 8 rounds while we sat there.

Day 11 coming up.