Day 6 - The Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park (567 km)

We set out from Sturgis around 9:30 a.m. after a quick pit-stop at the local BMW dealer. It looks like yet another O-ring has failed on me, as there is a small amount of oil seeping out from the cap. This is more just an annoyance than a problem. The dealer in Sturgis didn't have the part in stock. The annoying thing is that I just had the O-ring replaced a few weeks ago. I'll keep an eye on my oil levels, and top up if need be. They did have some incredible deals on bikes, and if I were ready to buy a new one, I could have saved a few grand - provided I was willing to put up with the hassles with paper work.

We rode and South and then West to Mt. Rushmore, arriving a little after eleven. It's an impressive site, although smaller than I'd imagined. And you have to pay $11 to park before you can even go see it. I don't remember Carey Grant having to do that in North by Northwest, but I guess more than just fashions have changed since then.

Americans have an odd, cult-like obsession with their presidents. I remember noting this a few months ago, when I was in Washington, DC, and went to see the Lincoln memorial. The enormity of the sculpture, the design modeled on a Roman temple, suggest that some presidents, if they play their cards right, will be deified. This certainly holds true for Mt. Rushmore, as the transcendence many of the guests felt in the presence of this monument was palpable. I half expected them to genuflect and kneel.

 And they seem to make it a patriotic pilgrimage to visit every monument, every memorial, every national park, forest, historic site. A kind of rite of patriotic passage.

I can't imagine us doing anything similar in Canada. Who, other than party hacks, would go to see a monument to Mackenzie-King? Or Trudeau? Or Sir John A. MacDonald? Can you imagine a mountain with Mulroney's visage carved into it? (Hard to imagine one that could accommodate that chin, anyway.)

From there we rode down to Custer State Park, which required a very slow but twisty ride along Iron Mountain Road, just off of Hwy 16a, complete with single lane tunnels. Unfortunately, some idiots who have yet to grasp the truth of "four wheels good, two wheels better," insisted on stopping at the tops of hills, just beyond the apex of a curve, or at the very end of a tunnel, thus stranding the poor two-wheeled travelers in very awkward positions.

It was all worth it, though, when in our tour through the park (another $10 each, please) we encountered first a group of wild donkeys through whom we were forced to maneuver, followed by a herd of buffalo (yes, I said buffalo) straddling the road. One of them giving Colin the hairy eyeball as she escorted her sweet young veal calf across the road.

After leaving the park, we rode to the small town of Custer, and there availed ourselves of a couple of DQ burgers. We weren't yet over our experience in Greybull, so wanted something familiar, or at least predictable.

On the highway again just after one, we rode the 87 through the last of the Black Hills on our way to Nebraska. Now, some will ask, why the **** are you going to Nebraska? Well might you ask, well might you ask.

There is really no good reason, that I can think of, why anyone would travel to Nebraska, except as a means to arriving someplace else. On the sign welcoming us to the state was the slogan: The Good Life, but I have seen little evidence of that so far. Indeed, I have yet to encounter a place so devoid of hope since passing through the Blackfeet reservation in Montana.

And yet, here we are, in Sidney, NE. Tomorrow, we'll be off again, and expect to arrive in Wichita, Kansas or else Denver, Colorado, tomorrow evening. We'll decide which based on weather reports, forest fire warnings, and maybe a coin toss.

In the meantime, Colin is working on piecing together another video of our travels, which we should have up tomorrow.