We said goodbye to Nelson this morning. The last we saw he was riding down I-90 enroute to Alaska.

Prior to his departure, Nelson transferred possession of Mao, our mascot swine, from his bike to Cleve's.Rapid City, South Dakota, to Sturgis, South Dakota

101 Miles

1719 Total Miles

We said goodbye to Nelson this morning. The last we saw he was riding down I-90 enroute to Alaska.

Nelson preparing for his solo ride to Alaska

Prior to his departure, Nelson transferred possession of Mao, our mascot swine, from his bike to Cleve's. Mao had little to say about the change in custody. Nelson will get visitation rights with Mao for one weekend a month and on certain holidays.

Mao is happy with his new home

Nelson will be posting updates of his progress on our web site.

It was a wonderful day in the neighborhood. Early weather reports indicated that we potentially faced monster rains and high winds. To our good fortune, neither occurred.

We left Rapid City and headed west on I-90. Our mission for the day was to maintain tourist mode and visit Spearfish, Deadwood and Sturgis, South Dakota.

Our first stop was Spearfish. We drove around a bit and found a very nice town of about 9,000 people. We stopped downtown for coffee at the Valley Cafe. While there we received several travel suggestions from the very friendly local folk.

We decided to take the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway, a great road that serpentines through the Black Hills National Forest. We reached 6,500 feet of elevation as we wound our way through a fabulous canyon and by a beautiful trout stream.

The Byway took us to Deadwood, the famous old western town known for lawlessness and the murder of Wild Bill Hickock. They stage a reenactment of Wild Bill's murder every day at 1:00 pm. We were walking down the street in search of the drama when two shots rang out. We turned in the other direction and saw a small crowd leaving a saloon. Wild Bill was dead once again. And we missed it.

From Deadwood we took Highway 14A to Sturgis, South Dakota, the home of the world's largest motorcycle rally. This August they expect 500,000 to 600,000 people to descend on this small town for a week of riding and running wild.

We made our way to the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum, which contains a number of old and interesting motorcycles. If you like motorcycles, it was really great. If you don't, you shouldn't be in Sturgis anyway. While there we were treated royally by Earlene, who pretty much runs the place. Bo's favorite was a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow. Cleve was enthralled by the old Indian motorcycles and Cushman scooters.

Earlene at the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum

After the museum we made our way to the local Harley dealership, where Cleve bought tee shirts for his grandchildren. This Harley stuff is beginning to wear Bo down. Who knows, a Harley could be in his future, but don't bet on it yet.

Cleve in Harleyworld.

After the Harley store we went to Gunner's Tavern, the oldest bar in Sturgis. Since it was only 3:00 pm and since we were still going to be on our bikes, we enjoyed soft drinks and a long chat with the bartender. We were the only customers.

We are now safely ensconced at the Super 8 motel, where we will do our laundry and rest up for tomorrow, which begins our journey back to Nashville.