This is going to be our last full day in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We’re moving out before the big motorcycle rally moves in. There are already a lot of bikes / bikers here. I guess they got tired of being quarantined. We wanted breakfast and with very limited choices, it was back to the Hill City Cafe for another mediocre meal. The food is average and today was our server’s first day on the job. I’m sure she’ll get better.

The plan for today included Needles Highway, Custer State Park, and Iron Mountain Road. The scenery is awesome on this route. There is plenty of wildlife. The roads were built for cruising on light, nimble motorcycles. Unfortunately, my bike is far from light and nimble. Needles Highway is just the right combination for ups, downs, lefts, and rights all in rapid succession to aggravate an issue I have with equilibrium. I usually try to avoid this type of road because of that.

Equilibrium or not, I didn’t want to miss out on this ride. This is part of my personal test to evaluate my ability to handle this machine. The jury is still out on that one.

The temperature headed up and we stopped to remove a layer or two. We stopped by this beautiful little stream and considered staying to enjoy the peaceful surroundings.

While we weren’t in a hurry, it was time to move on. We really didn’t stop much so there aren’t many pictures. There should be some good video once I get it organized. I guess we’ll all have to wait to see how that turns out.

I’m not going to waste your time with a poor attempt at describing what we encountered. You can see in the pictures below that there is a lot to experience here (and we bypassed Mt. Rushmore because you can see it from the road).

The final image of the day is one of the necessary evils of the trip. Our intrepid group doing their duty in the laundromat. There is no limit to how much fun we can have.