Day 5: Don't hate us because ....

…..we wear Harley Davidson gear. We were at MidAmerica Motoplex (Honda, Yamaha, Polaris, et al) when it opened hoping to get waterproof gloves for each of us and boot covers for Jim. Sold out on Saturday. We haul ourselves next door to the Harley Davidson shop . Thankfully, Harley doods don’t ride in the rain (something about keeping the chrome shiny…) so the dealer had a full stock of waterproof stuff: Goretex gloves for each of us and boot covers for Jim 
Not to put too fine a point on it but …. we got a chance to put our new gear to the test by the time we’d gone 90 km this morning. When we left Sioux Falls, it was overcast and 14 degrees. We had ALL our cool weather and rain gear on in view of the forecast however. Sure enough, we rode into rain and the temperature dropped to 11 degrees – again. OK. It’s all part of the adventure. We stopped at Ditty’s Diner for gas, coffee and lunch and when we finished, the rain had more or less stopped.
Guess what ?! South Dakota has its own share of cornfields – and billboards. The nice thing about these midwest prairie states is the 75mph speed limits. The I-90 was pretty bland going until we came to the crest of a hill and down into a valley with a vista of 2 road bridges and a rail bridge spanning the Missouri River. Very beautiful. The terrain had, all of a sudden, became very green with large rolling hills. There are cattle EVERYwhere. In huge pastures along the interstates and the secondary roads; even wandering around the scrub of the Badlands. Who owns them? And how are they rounded up? Although they do tend to stay pretty well together. They’re mainly black cows. I was going to tell you they were all black or very dark brown – no spotted or brown ones like we see. A few have white faces. And just when I decided that was going to be my story (I think about my posts while I ride), didn’t the next field have some cream-coloured cows!? So, I revised my post again – to include the creamy guys but still no spotteds or browns. And dang! If the next field had brown cows. Later this afternoon, I thought I finally saw a spotted cow but it was a pinto pony 
I had a wee bit of a meltdown after lunch and after we crossed the Missouri River. The landscape was beautiful and I tried to imagine what it would look like in sunshine. Today it was pouring rain and FOGGY?! My back was giving me grief (my bit of relief on Monday that I thought might be a sign I was toughening up was wishful thinking) and I was sleepy from lunch [stupidly, I had a hot beef sandwich that was loaded with gravy and a big scoop of mashed potato, covered in gravy, on top of it. Fries on the side because I didn’t want the mashed – which I got anyway. I scraped off as much gravy as I could, pi cked at the meat and one slice of bread and ate some fries. All bad stuff for staying alert on the bike – for me anyway]. For the first time, the rain and the cold wasn’t so much adventurous as just plain tiresome and discouraging. We wandered around the Tourist Info Center , talked to the staff and saddled up again. I got back in the groove and was okay after that. For the most part. At around 1800h when I resigned myself to the fast that had planned our route inappropriately so didn’t get to ride through the part of the Badlands that I’d really wanted to do. Nor did we get to Wall and Wall Drug which is a tourist trap featured on about 500 billboards along I-90. Again, a little discouraged and very disappointed but it didn’t last. Riding a motorcycle is about the journey, not the destination. Up to today, it’s been more about the destination – especially in this weather. That is, laying down miles to get to the “real scenery” . Today was our first day for sightseeing and I was beating myself up for kind of messing it up. But we DID see Badlands and lots of beautiful prairieland so it wasn’t all that bad, really.
The route today was I-90 west to Murdo where we dropped down 83S to Martin and Wounded Knee. We rode through Rosebud – a huge Indian Reservation (and ‘yes’, they’re still called Indians here) and 2 other reservations as we made a loop back up 27 to Badlands National Park. This little loop was very beautiful but it was almost 200km of rolling and flat prairie land. The road is in excellent condition and largely deserted except for a few cars – and us. Very little habitation and the wee towns are very far apart. For the second time today, we had to slow considerably so Jim could conserve gas since he was running on his warning light a fair little distance from the next town – and we didn’t know if Martin would have gas. I said he should be carrying tubing so we could siphon as my tank holds 4 or 5 liters more than his does.
We did find Wounded Knee after several stops for map checks. It was more a case of stumbling on it. Pretty decrepit Indian reservation but located in a very beautiful part of the world. I’m hoping that the generally poor experience I’m having with my Zumo is because I haven’t figured it out yet – and not a case of my wasting a thousand bucks on a piece of equipment.
I didn’t take many photos of what we DID see of the Badlands or the prairies since I knew my little snapshot camera couldn’t do it justice. You’ll have to visit it yourself!
The good thing about the long ride around the loop was that the sun shone most of the way and it was generally around 18 degrees. As we finished up on Rte 27 and ended up on 44 west toward Rapid City, the temperature dropped back to 14 and we rode under a huge black cloud. Enough already!
And, by the way, we crossed into Mountain Time so we’re now 3 hours behind you.

We’re checked in at a Quality Inn in Rapid City. No reservation so we rode into the city from route 44 and used the Zumo to find accommodations. The first try – Comfort Inn downt he street – was full. When we checked in here, I specifically asked about wireless internet. “oh yes” was the reply. So we go to dinner down the street and come back to the room to: make this post, check weather for tomorrow and read our email – all tasks requiring internet. “Little or no connectivity” when I try to connect. When Jim complained, he was told “there’d been a problem today” ! Why didn’t the lad at the desk tell us that when I asked about it ?!

Ps – in fairness to the Harley riders, THEY’re about the only bikers we saw today and 4 of them came into Ditty’s while we were there – soaked. Yesterday, we saw only Mr Fancy Pants – and he was on a Harley. But it wasn’t raining when we saw him ;-)

Pps – we’re both enjoying YOUR comments. We check every morning for them. However, if you don’t leave your name or give me a hint about your ID in your post, I don’t know who you are !