The “brown bag breakfast” at the hotels just isn’t appealing. It appears that every hotel has standardized on a granola bar, a piece of fruit, and a bottle of water. I don’t think my mom would have let me go off to school with a breakfast like that. Our first order of business was to find breakfast that met all of the CDC guidlines.

The Hill City Cafe looked promising but looks can be deceiving. The service was good but food took a long time to come out of the kitchen. That may have been due to the fact they have a breakfast buffet which seems odd given all the restrictions. We went with some basic breakfast menu items and it took a long time to get them to our table,

First meal complete. On to better things. The bikes had already been gassed up and Max had diligently planned another great route which we scrapped at the last minute and went a complete different direction. Instead of heading south per the original plan, we headed north toward Lead, Deadwood, and Spearfish Canyon with a stop at Sturgis Harley Davidson (the big rally is still a couple of weeks out).

There was only one unpleasant moment on the ride. Road construction put us on gravel on a hillside for about a mile and a half. If you read my blog from a few days ago you already know that this touring machine is really good at a lot of things but dirt riding is not one of them.

I didn’t take too many pictures today so you’ll just have to wait for the video which will eventually get posted on my Henry’s Ramblings YouTube channel (blatant self-serving plug). I did manage to get a couple while we were stopped at “Bridal Veil Falls”. We had a discussion about what percentage of falls are named Bridal Veil. Our conclusion is that about 47% of all the water falls in the world are named Bridal Veil.

We left the falls which was near the end of Spearfish Canyon Road and entered the town of Spearfish. It was nearing lunchtime so we pulled into the Red Water Kitchen. I don’t take food pictures so you’ll have to trust me that we did not overindulge for lunch. We were able to sit outside and enjoy the view of the traffic in Spearfish while we ate.

Harley Davidson of Sturgis was next on the agenda. Max and Mike R were looking for some specific items. My personal shopping list for HD parts is very small – as in – none. The purchased items required some installation and it was do-it-ourselves time. (Shop rates at most Harley Dealerships are around $100 an hour – yikes!)

While we were finishing up the installation, a crazy thing happened. A great guy and good friend from my Delta Faucet days pulled in right next to us. Jim Thacker and I have been texting back and forth about the possibility of meeting up since we were both in the Black Hills area. It didn’t appear that it was going to work out but then I looked up and here he was. What a great addition to a good day of riding. (I’m the old guy in the picture below.)

We said goodbye to Jim and cruised back to our hotel in Hill City. The route this time included only 1 “U” turn due to a road closure (Ugh!). We all were craving pizza after having talked about it for 2 days. The only place in Hill City that sells pizza is Burnouts. We ordered the food and Max ran to get it. He was surprised to find that Burnouts is a trailer parked on a gravel road just on the edge of downtown Hill City. Again there are no food pictures. The pizza was OK but somewhat underwhelming considering the price.

Tomorrow the plan is to revisit the plan that was scrapped earlier in the day. Since tomorrow is our last full day in Hill City we need to leave time to visit the laundromat which is right next door to our hotel. Clean clothes are in our future. That makes us and everyone who stands near us really happy.

If you ride a motorcycle and haven’t made it to the Black Hills, you need to put it on your calendar to get here as soon as you can. It is really beautiful.