Back at the Ranch – Days 3 and 4

I’m combining some of the days of our trip and highlighting the interesting parts.  If you’ve followed our journey this far, thank you for coming along for the ride!

8/3/22
We woke up to clear, sunny skies and it was already starting to heat up. I successfully motored my way through our knee high grass out to the main road behind Bill. Today we’d meet our friends at the Spearfish Perkins, one of our favorite haunts and then ride into Sturgis as Bill had a tattoo in mind he wanted to get.

After filling up our gas tanks in Belle Fourche, about an hour south of our land, I hit my starter button and.. click, click, click.. You have to be kidding me. We got out the portable jump pack and got it started, but it would not stay running. Bill finally pushed it into a parking spot and worked on it some more. Luckily, we were across the street from an O’Reilly Auto Parts and Bill got it running and sped over there before it quit. They put the battery on the charger for us as we waited in the hot sun.  Bill determined the problem was the stator, (similar to an alternator on a car).

Beautiful.

That charge got me to our friend’s campground where they were waiting on us. Now well past breakfast, we went instead to Applebee’s where I drowned my sorrows in a Shark Bowl.

We did visit a motorsports dealer which Google told me was a Kawasaki dealer, but that was not the case. We decided not to chase down a stator for my 2007 bike which no one will have in stock and then try to get it into a dealer for replacement. I’ll just ride with Bill.

Leaving my bike at the campground, the four of us rode into Sturgis to visit a tattoo shop where Bill had an idea for some new ink.  A little while later, he had his new Sturgis tattoo, one similar to a friend of ours, who got his in Sturgis a few years back.

We had our tent for an overnight trip to spend with our friends at the campground. It was a gorgeous, breezy night around the fire. Not sure why my camera did this.

8/4/22
The next morning we rode with our friends to the The Lodge at Deadwood for breakfast, which has become a tradition. I was delighted to see my beloved Wrangler Burrito was back on the menu after covid hosed everything and they had gone to a limited menu.  We crammed 12 of us around a table in a back corner, drank coffee, laughed, and welcomed some new friends into our circle this year.

After a group shot in the parking lot after breakfast, we went our separate ways for the day.

Our next stop was Hill City to visit the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research. I found them online after searching for someone or someplace out here that could identify some rocks we found on our land. To my surprise, the museum is just down Main St. from the Bumpin Buffalo, one of our favorite stops.

The museum wasn’t that big but very, very cool and filled with tons of artifacts, and adjacent to a gift store with many rocks and crystals. I knew some dinosaur fossils were found in our county some 30 years ago or so, but today I learned all about them, their names Stan and Sue, and the museum director spent lots of time with us.

I bought some Blue Tiger Eye stones from the gift shop next door, AND a selenite bowl for some other crystals I brought.

I brought a handful of my own rocks to the rockhound at the museum and he told me that some might be hematite or jasper.

I thought hematite was more of a black/silver color (when polished) but learned it is also reddish brown. I’m looking forward to collecting a good number of rocks to put in the tumbler when we get back.

Next we had lunch at one of my favorite haunts, the Bumpin Buffalo and I caught this pic from the rooftop. Center lane parking was not yet open but would be very soon as bikes began to steadily stream into town.

We then parted ways with our friends, headed back to the campsite in efforts to get my bike back to our land without having to go get the trailer.  Luckily, after sitting on a trickle charger all day, it fired right up I was able to ride it back with no issues. Pretty bummed I’m sans bike for the Sturgis Rally, but things could be worse.