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My fried Bob JOhnson and I left Watertown at 6am, to ride down to Niobrara, Bob on his 1100 Wing and I on my Goose. Found My friend Mike and his R90 already there, and took some photo's of anyone who would sit still long enough to be photographed.Got some shots of The street in front of the Two Rivers Saloon, and the folks there. Got the first bonus list and went to the campground to spread my maps out on my tent floor to ponder a base route. Since South Dakota has such nice speed limits, and I am so familiar with the roads. I opted to make a loop up through the middle of South Dakota, across, down through the Black HIlls, and at that point, asess the time, and see if there was time to grab a few more bonus stops on the way back to Niobrara. One big bonus, dangled carrot-like in front of me though was the Friday night presentation by Arlene Liska. This was a gamble. Having road in Friday morning, I'd need to get a nice long nap in before I left Friday night if it was to work. I tried valiantly to nap all day Friday but to no avail. Decided to go for it anyway, signed in for the second list, and waited for Arlene's presentation to begin. The presentation was wonderful, but by the end of it I was more than ready to go. I ran outside, hopped on the Goose, and headed down the road. five miles out, my radar detector fried on me. No problem, as South Dakota's posted speeds are plenty high to make good time without speeding.Twenty miles down the road, my walkman crapped out. This was kind of a bummer, as I really like the tunes while riding. I'd get by all the same though. Fifty miles out, the trimpiece that seals up the faceshield on my helmet came off, inducing a HORRIBLE amount of windnoise into the helmet. This was going to be a long uncomfotable ride for sure. I headed north to Chamberlain to answer a question about the marker under the concrete teepee. Met up with a GS rider there. Headed north again to Pierre to see the flaming fountain. The flaming fountain is an incredible sight after dark for sure. Finding fuel in Pierre after dark was tough though, all the gas stations shut down at 11pm. After 20 minutes of looking, I found the lone fuel stop that was open. Fueled up, then on to Mobridge. Faced the same battle again at Mobridge. No fuel stops open, was able to find a Phillips 66, and I had a gas card for them, so was able to fuel up. Obly problem was, I don't have enough fuel range to get from Mobridge to Rapid City on one load of fuel. As I was pondering the solution, Will Outlaw stopped past to offer any help. I thanked him, and he headed off to the Sitting Bull gravesite. I met up with him there, and we wandered around in the dark to get the information on the bonus list. Apparently Sitting Bull was born twice, as there are TWO different years listed as his birthdate. I left the monument before Will did, and chose to follow the gravel road south from the monument towards Faith SD, hoping to find fuel there. Will turned north to take the paved route back out. In Faith I was not able to find a fuel station open, nor were any of the gas stations taking any of my gas cards. I decided to use my three hour bonus lay over at the local hotel. The lady took 45 minutes to write up my slip, then asked "89 dollars please sir", I caughed. 89 bucks for a three hour nap is out of my price range. I thanked her for her time and effort, and went to find a park to nap in. One last attempt was to use my master card to get fuel at the co-op. Success!!! Fuelled up, I was off to Mud Butte. At the Ben Ashe memorial, I found a guy camping, asleep in his collapsed tent. The guys dog was barking and barking, and barking at me as I wandered around, using the restroom, and writing down the stuff from the marker. bark bark bark. I sure hope he got a good nap, I wonder how many other times that dog had to guard his owner from riders in to look at the marker. On to the Black Hills, and Deadwood. Near Belle Foursche I got tired and pulled over for a nap next to the bike on an aproach. After a short rest I was ready to roll. In Deadwood I found a batch of bikes outside a casino and stepped in to get a token. It looked like there was a gas leak! Riders were sprawled all over the back room. I grabbed a detailed map of the area from the cashier, and a token without waking them, and headed for Keystone. Met up with another rider in Keystone, wrote down the info on the Carrie Ingals marker, next to the post office, and decided to go for the Feather legs monument in Lusk. Hell, I didn't even have a Wyoming map, my South Dakota map had a note that said "this way to Lusk" so I figured it was just a little way farther. I found Lusk, and was aprehensive about the road to the marker, I had been to the begining of the road a few years ago, and chose to not attempt it, this time the road was dry, and I was there to try again. In all honesty, the road was in great shape. I was able to get up to 55mph on sections of the road even. Met up with a couple other riders at the marker, and watched a formation of helicopters fly past. Now, all I needed to do was get from Lusk, to Alliance (carhenge), and back to Niobrara. Unfortunatelly, this is where things went bad. I ran the bike out of fuel, wasting an hour getting back on the road from that. Then to doom myself farther, my daughter had eaten the corner of my Nebraska map, and the section that was missing was RIGHT where Niobrara was. My plan was to get in the guestimated area, and hope it would show up on the GPS screen once in the area. My plan was a bad one. As I came through Gross Nebraska, figuring that right over the hill would be signs for Niobrara, the road turned to gravel, cutting my speed to 40mph or less. I kept on the road, but my ride was over. As the clock ticked over past my return time, I pulled the bike over and shut it off. I was severely pissed. "Pig bittin' mad" in fact, so rather than return to Niobrara in a foul mood, I turned the bike in the oposite direction and headed out for a liesurely 100 mile ride. As I rode around the gravel roads of the highlands of Nebraska, I thought about what this was really about. Here I was, in a civilised country, no passport needed, no risk of being bitten by any man eating bugs, no one shooting at me, and pleanty of food. Compared to what Arlene and Danny did back in the 60's on their bikes, I had it good. My mood improved as I put it all in perspective. I fueled up in a small town, called Adam to let him know I was all right and just running late, and took off my gear. I flipped up my face shield, and let the cool evening breeze blow across my face, locked the throttle lock at 50mph, and cruised towards Niobrara enjoying the animals, and greenery. I don't even know what my end mileage was for the ride, I do know that it was a great route, that would have netted me a FINE score, had I only been able to make it back on time. My friend Bob did win the touring class though, and that almost makes up for my DNF.Sunday morning Bob talked me into participating in the AMA poker run, which is a really different type of poker run than the group bar rides that I am used to seeing. For this one they gave ya directions and had you stop and answer questions along the way, and the end you got to draw slips for however many of the questons you got right. I drew a great score and WON. which is kind of nice, and made me feel a littl better about my damned DNF. I am going to have to put a fuel cell on the Goose it seems. I still won't ever win my class, but at least it will be a whole new group of people beating me for a change. I'll see you all again for the 2003 MN1K for sure. |
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