Daily Summary

The Ride

Today was a mix of nice and nasty. There were strong winds yet again. For the first 30 miles, they were at our back and it was nice. When we turned north in Moorcroft, we had side winds gusting to close to 30 mph. It wasn’t enough to be dangerous, but it was annoying, slowed us down, and forced us to focus on stabilizing our bikes. It was again ok after we turned left 20 miles later near Devil’s Tower.

Our pattern of long down and ups continued. We biased downward for the first 30 miles as you can see on the chart. Then we went flat for 10 – 15 and then were biased upward for most of the remainder.

The Sights

As we left Gillette, we passed a motor speedway. I didn’t get a picture, but it reminded me of Dixie Speedway near Atlanta. If you haven’t ever gone to Dixie Speedway, you should. It is a lot of fun.

We also saw a couple of cases of literally many dozens to hundreds of train engines connected together. Our guess is that there is a major hub for the railroad there and all of the engines were there for maintenance and on standby to be used. But, it was so weird to see hundreds of engines in a row. I took a picture but the sun blinded it so I didn’t include it.

Speaking of trains, I’ve continued to enjoy getting passing trains to blow their horn by pumping my arm. I’m not really sure why I like to do that so much. I got a few to do it this week, including one today.

You can see a photo of an early view. A lot of low hills and grass.

The highlight of the day was Devil’s Tower. We had lunch by the access road to the tower and then drove in to the park entrance before coming back to our bikes and finishing the ride.

I have a shot of Devil’s Tower from a distance as I topped a hill. Then, one from the base and one of me and the park entry sign and the tower. If you look closely, you’ll see that there are almost vertical lines up the tower. That means that the rock was rotated 90 degrees since formed and was somehow pushed up to become the tower. 

The final pictures are of Sundance from a hilltop as we approached. I also captured a picture of a huge cliff outside town where you can see all of the rock falls that have happened. I thought that was neat.

The Motel And Dinner

We are in a really old school hotel today. There is a picture of the outside and of the room. The white wall is actually 3D plaster pattern that must be ancient. The room is clean at least, but this is the most dated place we stayed. The other night, the outside looked like this but the rooms were renovated. They don’t even have an office with anyone working. Like an Airbnb, you get a door code. But, it will do for the night!

We hit a local steakhouse. Most folks got steaks, but I got a double burger with some toppings and chips, plus some appetizers. It hit the spot!