Devil's Tower from a distance and then close up. Some daredevils climb this free style, using hands and feet only. For me, cluck, cluck, cluck.
On the
way back at the junction of Wyoming Route 24 and U.S. 14 I tanked up.
Just as I was about to leave the highway was blocked for a very long
tractor-trailer rig hauling a stator for a power plant was
negotiating a ninety degree turn. It took about 15 minutes for this
to occur. Stators are part of the electric generating equipment and
are very heavy thus the number of wheels spread out to carry the
load.
I know it's difficult to see but the first truck's front end is about
even with the rear of the yellow car parked. The rear of the second
truck is at the far left edge of the picture. They were negotiating a
90 degree turn on a two lane highway. It took them a good 15 minutes to
make the full turn. Just in front of the last truck a man is on the
trailer operating an engine driven set of rear wheels of the trailer.
The building to the right is in Sundance, Wyoming, a small town Southeast of Devil's Tower.
I was
going to stop at Mt. Rushmore again on my way back from Wyoming but I looked up and saw some very dark
clouds forming back toward Keystone and the mote. Since I had been
there before I decided it would be in my best interest to find
shelter back in Keystone. These clouds in the summer often bring
some hail stones with them.
As you can see, not everything around the next curve is exciting. Needless to say, I scurried back to the motel.
Back at
the motel everyone was getting their bikes under anything they could
to protect them from the potential hail that may come with the
thunderstorm. The clouds did a lot of swirling and then they formed
strange bubble clouds beneath them. A minute or so before this
picture was taken the bubbles were really showing. All of this
darkness with some wind only provided a very few drops of rain. A
lot of people called it a day when these clouds formed but an hour or
so later you couldn't find a dark cloud in the sky.
I started packing my things Saturday night so it would take as little
time as possible Sunday morning to load it and leave. I awoke around
4:45 Sunday morning, got up, dressed and started loading my bike
quietly. I wasn't alone as there were a couple other fellows doing
the same. I had a 1500 mile ride back to the house so dilly
dallying around would not help cover these miles. After loading I
pulled out heading South through Custer where I filled up and then
proceeded to catch U.S. 385 through Wind Cave National Park, Hot
Springs on into Nebraska.
It was
a cool crisp morning and Sweet Thang was loving the colder air to
breathe in through those six carbs. As I rounded a curve going up
hill I immediately came to a quick stop. Standing in the middle of
the road was a rather large Bison with no intentions of moving any
faster than he wanted.
Prior to the large Bison was a Prairie Dog village comprising of
hundreds of little mounds in the prairie grass. I would give a sharp
whistle just to see their heads pop up and look around. Then I rounded a
curve and came upon a large bull Bison slowly strolling down the
highway. I had heard a story of a biker blowing his horn at some Bison
and one charged him. I didn't want that to happen to me as I knew I
couldn't turn around fast enough to out run him so I just shut the
engine off and waited until he decided to exit the roadway. Then after a
few more minutes I cranked up and road past. While watching them I
noticed a young calf among the small group and how much its color
differed.
I rode
down U.S. 385 until I hit NE 26 to Ogallala,NE where I gassed up,
drank a cold coke and hit I-80 East bound. At North Platte I turned
South on U.S. 83 to check out the town. A good sized college town
and clean. I gassed up and headed back up 83 to catch I-80 again.
At Gothenburg I pulled off to visit a Pony Express Station in town.
I remembered reading books about these riders and saw several movies
over the years that showed the mail carriers riding like the wind,
sort of like bike riders.
The area of the building was in a residential part of town with old
houses, big yards and shady trees. I'm sure back in the day of Pony
Express Riders this was a different scene.
When I
got to Lincoln, NE I was getting tired but wanted to get as close to
I-29 as I could before I stopped for the day. I dropped off I-80
there and caught NE 2 riding the hills and fields to Nebraska City.
Just a few miles East I stopped at a good location, about 2 miles
from the Missouri River, gas, food and lodging.
The
next morning, Monday, I hit the road again and soon caught I-29
heading South to Kansas City, MO.
I love sunrise pictures, not as much as sunset, but I don't usually get
up early enough to catch sunrise photos. This was a very pretty sunrise
shot in Missouri.
Across the highway from the sunrise in the mist of early morn was, yep, you guessed it, fields of corn.
A short
distance down the road I stopped to take these two pictures. They
were the last of the trip and believe me, that sun didn't get any
cooler as the day wore on. In fact at Kansas City I caught I-70 to
St. Louis and riding through St. Louis my thermometer on the bike was
registering 102 and that was at 70 mph. I then caught I-64 out of
St. Louis across Western Illinois and then I-57 South to it's
junction with I-24. About six miles North of Paducah, KY I shut down
for the night. I was whipped from the heat. That was a 561 mile
day, not to shabby.
Last two pictures of the trip taken on I-29 North of Kansas City, MO. As the old song says, it was a "Hot, Hot, Hot" day.
The
next morning I lit out for the final 339 miles down to Nashville, TN
and on to Seymour. Total trip was 8 ½ days, 3876 miles of fun. Good riding to all.
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