Black Hills, Thunder Basin National Grasslands and more

 We're back on the road today after a long weekend outside Deadwood, SD. Our route took us southwest on US 85 on winding roads with sweeping turns through the Black Hills National Forest. 

We crossed over into Wyoming and in Newcastle turned west on US 16 and rode out of the Black Hills. We followed train tracks for a few miles, and Mike was excited when the engineer blew the train whistle as the long train of coal cars rumbled past. Wyoming is the nation's top coal producer, and our route took us through the Powder River Basin where the top 10 producing coal mines are located. 

Just before lunch the odometer rolled over to 31,000 miles which mean we've ridden about 1300 miles so far on this trip. We were lucky today with our lunch stop - Remy's Diner in Upton, Wyoming. The owner told us today is the 21st anniversary of her business that features homemade foods, and we enjoyed fabulous chocolate malts along with our sandwiches in a friendly, inviting atmosphere. Don't miss it!

We turned west onto Wyoming 116 after looking at the map during lunch and realizing we missed our planned turn a few miles back. WY 116 took us through Thunder Basin National Grassland. The highway stretched straight out in front of us as far as we could see, occasionally taking a wide sweeping turn.

We saw cows, sheep, and plenty of deer but very few vehicles or houses.

WY 116 took us to WY 450 which was our original planned route. Listed on the Butler motorcycle map as a lost highway, or a road that has faded center lines and long miles without signs of people that make them seem lost in time. This is a semi-arid climate with few trees, and we could imagine settlers traveling west in covered wagons.

We felt lost in time until we passed huge coal mines and saw more trains ferrying cars of coal east. We took a quick jog for 3 miles on WY 59N and then turned west onto WY 387, passing a couple of small towns that support the coal and oil industry in this area. The Bozeman Trail, named after John Bozeman who established this route in the 1860's to connect the gold rush territory of southern Montana with the Oregon Trail in eastern Wyoming, crosses the highway and made us think of the vast difference between those early pioneers and us zooming down the highway on our BMW.

We picked up I-25 south for about 40 quick miles with the speed limit posted at 80 mph and unlike most interstates, very little traffic. Our stop for tonight is Casper, Wyoming, the second largest city in Wyoming with a long history of oil and cowboy culture. It was 93 degrees when we stopped late in the afternoon, glad to take advantage of air conditioning before we continue our ride tomorrow into Colorado.

Denver to Whitewood, South Dakota

 We left Denver first thing in the morning and decided to ride north on I-25 past Cheyenne, WY since we had a long way to go and it was a hot day. I spent my time looking west to the Front Range of the Rockies while Mike navigated the traffic.

When we crossed into Wyoming the mountains disappeared, replaced by green prairies as far as we could see.

This wide-open country is known for strong winds and fierce winter storms. Luckily today we had neither, but we did see miles of snow fencing.

As we continued north, the landscape changed to rocky cliffs and hills covered with trees in this southwestern corner of the Black Hills. The Black Hills National Forest covers 1.2 million acres with only 10% in Wyoming and the rest in South Dakota. The Black Hills got their name from the dense ponderosa pines that look black from a distance, and we enjoyed the change in scenery as well as the sweeping highway turns through the area.

We're staying at a VRBO in Whitewood, SD for the weekend with our sons, their girlfriends, and dogs where we sit outside on the porch and watch the wildlife in the fields. We're back on the road Monday, continuing our trip west into Wyoming - and more hot weather.

South Dakota to Colorado: prairie to mountains

We started the 34th day of our cross-country motorcycle trip in Hot Springs, South Dakota in the Black Hills, and as we headed south of out of town quickly descended out of the mountains into the flat prairie. It seemed like we could look across the prairie for miles until the grass met the horizon, with no buildings or hills to block the view.

Mike zoomed along U.S. 18 and then U.S. 85 as we headed south from South Dakota into Wyoming along the traffic-free highways. Periodically we would see a herd of cattle or an isolated windmill that made me think about the people who originally settled this part of the country and how difficult their lives must have been. We passed through one town, Hawk Springs, with a population of 45 people.

Soon after we crossed into Wyoming the BMW's odometer rolled over to 10,000 miles. We've traveled almost 8000 miles on this trip, and it's difficult to wrap my mind around the number of miles and the places we've been to accumulate those miles.

It's windy here on the open prairie, and we saw miles of snow fences along the west side of the highway. The snow fences must not be very effective because there are also large signs and snow closure gates that look like the red and white striped gates at railroad crossings outside of every town that warn motorists to turn around and go back when the winter road conditions are unsafe.

We were looking for the Rockies as we continued south into Colorado, but we first rode through the Pawnee National Grassland, a 30 by 60 mile area important for wildlife and especially migrating birds.

U.S. 85 south of Greeley, Colorado becomes more congested with semi-trucks associated with agriculture as well as the booming oil and energy activity in this area. The closer we got to Boulder, the more traffic grew. The good news was that we also started seeing the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains that rises almost 10,000' above the plains.

We're in Boulder through the weekend to visit our son before we start the final 3 days home to Arizona. We're looking forward to mountain riding after the hundreds of miles of prairie over the past few days.  Here is today's route