Devil's Tower

I packed up immediately the next morning to get a head start on the day, as I knew that I would be stopping often to admire the scenery and take pictures in the park. I took the road that winds through the majority of the perimeter of the Badlands, fully in the moment of where I was and what I was experiencing.

I headed back out on Route 90 with a sense of urgency, deciding that I would also take the side trip later that day to visit Devil’s Tower in eastern Wyoming, made famous as the site of the alien landing in Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The ride out and the view of the tower were fabulous, but I made a rookie mistake on the way back to the interstate as I tried to stop by the side of the road to take a picture.

I asked a couple who had pulled over for the same reason to take my picture. Afterwards I realized that I was striking a pose more appropriate for Dancing With the Stars than for a guy that just rode 2000 miles on his bike....oh well...

The line going into the park. Yuck...

Gravel is the motorcyclist’s worst enemy, as even a light dusting of it on a road can spell disaster, especially if you are turning or braking.  Not fully noticing the gravel on the side of the road as I pulled over and braked, the bike began to slide, ultimately forcing me to lay the bike down on it’s left side. Luckily, I did remember to check my rear view mirror before attempting to pull over to make sure that no one was behind me, and the section of the side of the road were I went down was uneven, allowing me the leverage to pick the bike back up, something that would have been impossible had the terrain been level. With nothing more than a scuffed boot and a very mild case of road rash on my left elbow, I set out again, more embarrassed than anything else by a move I have always known better than to make.

These were some of the cloud formations that inspired me to pull over and end up dropping my bike. Yeah, it was worth it...

Heck, yeah!!!

With the sightseeing delays holding me back from my 450 mile a day goal, I made a concerted effort to keep the rest of my stops to a minimum for the rest of the day. Even the crossing into Montana, while still a solid milestone of how far I had come, wasn’t enough to deter me from quitting early. I pushed onward past Billings, finally running out of stream in Carney, Montana, about 50 miles from Bozeman. I fell asleep that night well aware that I still had 575 miles to go, with only one more full day of riding ahead of me before my workshop started on Thursday morning…