The final installment! We’ve been home a week but it feels like we could step back in time and be back in our beloved Black Hills and the beautiful rolling prairie. It feels like yesterday we were waking up in our tent (sometimes to coyotes in the early morning hours) walking down to the pavilion for coffee, getting ready and hopping on our bikes for breakfast and on to our daily adventures.
We were delighted to see our dear friends tie the knot…
Paid a visit to the new Full Throttle Saloon, and I was off the charts geeked to visit two haunted locations, the Bullock Hotel in Deadwood and the Hotel Alexander in Rapid City. Those are stories in themselves that I’ll share in the days to come. Hehehe..
Wednesday night of our last week, we spent the night on our land. I found a hilly spot where I got three bars of 4G, thanks to the Verizon tower out on the highway! Woohoo! Future site of my new office away from home. It was in this spot we soon heard the cackle of coyotes as the sun set.
Once it was dark enough, I went out with my camera and tripod, hoping I’d be lucky again to see the northern lights, but the horizon remained dark. I was amazed to see, however, the milky way stretching from the southeast to the northwest, directly over our beloved homestead. It’s not as sharp as I’d like it, but I look forward to more practice.
Closing up the camper the next day, Bill discovered a broken vent cover in the bathroom, and we luckily found a replacement at K & K Kustoms, in Belle Fourche. Belle is an hour south of us, and we were lucky we only had to drive that far. I was expecting to have to go to Rapid City, which is almost two hours one way.
Not only did K & K have the vent cover, they also carried the heavy duty covers that fit over the vents and still allow them to open. With the hail the way it is, we opted to buy these covers as well, which required purchasing a cordless drill. Bill was able to cargo net the vent covers on, and we made our way to Runnings in Belle Fourche for the drill.
We still need to develop a driveway! Easier to leave the bikes on the road and walk back.
Bill installed four vent covers over the vent lids, in the hot sun. Bless him.
We doubled checked everything (or at least I thought I did) and we made our way back south to our campground in Spearfish. Stopping in Belle Fourche, I realized my tablet was missing. (Belle Fourche has now become the town of “Oh no, where is my ____?”) It’s where I discovered my backpack was missing, another story for another day.
By now the sun was setting, and my Awesome Husband offered to go back himself and get it. I wanted instead to get up early the next day and go back. I didn’t want to leave it until spring, as I figured the LCD screen may freeze and I also transferred quite a bit of GoPro video to make room on our cards. I thought it was inside the trailer, but as it turns out, I left it on the propane tanks! I set it there to close the front window shade and completely forgot.
So three hours into our day, we jump on I-90 to start the looooooong ride home. The first day was uneventful and we made it back to the hotel, where we found they made quite a bit of progress on the pool since our last visit.
Somewhere in Iowa my bike made it’s annual sacrifice to the road when a nut from my windshield worked itself loose, bounced off the gas tank and was lost forever.
Our luck took another turn just before Joliet, IL when the skies opened up. This was the first time I’ve ever had to stop under an overpass due to the weather, and hopefully my last.
The sun dipped below the horizon and it was dusk when we passed the Pure Michigan sign, though we didn’t need the sign to tell us. The crumbling, pitted roads were our welcome. We stopped for gas and saw another system to our north on the radar. Now we were trying to beat the rain again, and luckily stayed just south.
The lightning show along our route on I-94 was unlike anything I’d ever seen. How I wished I could stop and set up my tripod and camera! The entire sky would illuminate, showing the profile of the dark cloud masses. We watched the sky and knew we were right at the edge of the storm. Then there was a closure on 94 along with road construction. Fun! Those were probably the most anxious 30 or so minutes of my life. 94 routed us onto M-14, to 23 south and back on 94. Bill dropped back and I led us through this maze, and I remember the familiar smell of being by the water as we passed over the murky darkness of the Huron River, bringing to mind memories fishing on Lake Erie from years ago.
We made it home safe, just before midnight. The next day Bill checked out the rattling I noticed the night before and discovered a broken fairing bracket. Oh joy!
Then days later, upon taking it for a test ride, he discovers a problem with the front wheel, causing a pretty decent wobble at higher speeds when you loosen your grip on the bars. There’s either an issue with the rim or the tire. My anxious death grip on the handle bars the night before is probably why I hadn’t noticed. I’m now parked until we get that checked out.
So we made it home, had a blast, and added a number of memories to our South Dakota days. I’ve got more stories to share and video to post. Subscribe to my YouTube channel if you wish!
Thanks, as always, for coming along.