East Wyoming & South Dakota
26 April 2024
The bike is still there but someone has tried to move it. I know, as the anchor chain around the front wheel is now scrunched up against the brake calipers. Someone has tried to push it without realising the chain was there and then abandoned the mission.
Poor show. I expect a higher level of professionalism and commitment from the Untermenschen who steal my motorcycles. The Albanians in London, for example, never go a-bike-robbing without the correct tools for the job. Angle-grinders, bolt cutters and the like. To do otherwise would be a stain on the national character. I say this as I’ve been Tirana and had numerous Albanians recite to me, with thinly-disguised pride, how George W Bush had his Cartier watch nicked off his wrist while doing a walkabout, despite being surrounded by dozens of Secret Service agents.
I've lost a Ducati 748S and an improbably beautiful MV Agusta F4 from the same spot in Central London, both secured by anchor chains but to no avail. On both occasions, the investigating officer told me it was an Albanian gang. They have monopolised this business and deal with any incursions into their market with unnerving and disproportionate levels of personal violence against would-be competitors.
So it’s lucky I put the chain on. On returning from Lookout Mountain, I thought I might not bother. I then remembered the sign in the motel breakfast room informing guests they had to wear shoes in the Breakfast Room. What kind of people need to be told this? The people who stay in motels like this, that’s who..
27 April 2024
At breakfast, shod in deck shoes, I’m watching the Fox News Weatherman gleefully describe the awful, local conditions. Winter has returned to Colorado with a vengeance.
Outside is freezing rain, turning to sleet which will become snow by 09:00. In the mountains, where I was for the last two days, is under four-foot of the stuff.
The next thirty miles are the worst conditions I have ever ridden in. The lane markings on the freeway can’t be seen as there is so much water. The spray is so bad, road signs are just a blur.
I stop to fill up at Buc-Ees on the recommendation of Brendan, the day before. It’s a fabulously, ridiculous concept of a gas station. Because it emanates from Texas, it has to be the biggest. This is the most northern one, with over 150 pumps, three restaurants, an onsite coffee roasting facility, and a bakery. People make a day out of coming here.
Eventually, I make it to the border with Wyoming and the weather lifts to reveal the desolate ‘badlands’ I was wistfully looking for a few days ago.
East and West Wyoming are entirely different propositions. The west is opulent and magnificent; The east is bleakly impressive: a vast blankness that words and photographs cannot adequately communicate.
It’s the trees, or lack of them that’s so unnerving. Like riding through a landscape after a nuclear holocaust, for 300 miles to Gillette.
28 April 2024
Over 20 indigenous tribes continue to maintain a sacred narrative about the creation of the ‘Devil’s Tower” in South-Western bit of South Dakota.
The Kiowa claim that: "Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.”
Well, if you want to swallow this sort of poorly written, mystic claptrap, well into the 21st century, the very best of luck to you.
I prefer the scientific explanation that the Devil’s Tower exposed itself, like a geological Harvey Weinstein, about 50 million years ago after the softer surrounding rock had been eroded.
If you’ve ever seen ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ you may recognise Devil’s Tower as it features prominently. I don’t as, this film, along with The Simpsons, any of the Star Wars franchise and Strictly Come Dancing, are but three examples of popular culture that interest me not a jot and so have never seen.
It’s a mightily impressive sight though, and the US National Parks Service has created two hikes around its base. I did the shorter, 1.6 mile version and although it doesn’t photograph too well close up, it’s humbling to be amongst giant rocks and boulders that date back 625,000 human life spans.
Next, I’d planned to visit Mount Rushmore. First, in late afternoon to look at the famous depictions of US Presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Then return, at sunset, to see them illuminated.
I get sidetracked by a sign to the Crazy Horse National Monument and pay $7 to take a look. The short version is it’s a Native American Rushmore, a memorial to the Lakota war leader who took up arms against the United States federal government. The fight was against encroachment by settlers on their territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. Ironically, they outfought the US soldiers but ultimately lost in the courts, proving the line from The Godfather, that you can steal a lot more with a briefcase than a gun.
It’s colossal, although only depicting two characters: the chief and the mythical winged horse. It’s undeniably impressive but very much work in progress. Only the face is completed and the outstretched arm is at an early stage. The horse is still one huge hunk of shapeless granite. It’s unlikely to be completed for at least another fifty years. In this respect, it’s similar to Goudi’s bonkers, Sagrada Família in Barcelona which is over a hundred years in the making and perpetually five years from completion.
The whole Crazy Horse site is an exemplar of how to make this history accessible. It’s encouraging to see that this is one Native American tribe that has really got their act together, without cheapening their heritage or subjecting their people to abject poverty. The Visitor Center is a beautifully cared-for building with gleaming wood floors throughout and carefully curated exhibits.
For a further $5, you can get taken on a rickety old bus to the foot of the mountain for the best view of the sculpture. The driver and guide is avuncular, knowledgeable and a biker to boot. He says I’ve visited at least a month too early as it stays cold here until late in the season. He suggests I ride the Needles and Iron Mountain Highways before I leave the area, as they did open a few days ago.
As I ride out, a thick fog is descending so I abandon thoughts of seeing Rushmore this afternoon. The temperature drops to 0ºC also, so there’s no way I’m getting kitted up again at 21:00 to see it by floodlight.
29 April 2024
The forecast is correct and at 07:00, the weather is perfect so I head straight for Mount Rushmore. A few people - notably Americans - had warned me it may underwhelm, being smaller than the imagination conjures. The Crazy Horse guide had also made a few, disparaging, size-related comparisons, so I was prepared for unmet expectations.
I needn’t have worried as it’s simply magnificent and lifts the spirit in the same way that Grand Canyon or the Hoover Dam do. Rather than just gawp at it from the viewing terrace, I walked the laid-out route where the best views of each individual sculpture have their own terrace and details of the subjects.
All in all, it’s a very satisfying way to spend an hour or two and leave feeling both satisfied and a bit wiser. And I saw it under the best possible conditions… Yes, that impossibly blue sky in the photograph below is for real. No Photoshop trickery or similar.
I set off in search of the Needles Highway and am relieved of $20 by a nice Lakotian lady for the privilege of riding this and the Iron Mountain. And it is a privilege. As a riding-road, it doesn’t rate that highly as it’s just too torturous. But the views of the ‘Needles’, and the ingenuity of the ‘pig-tail’ bridges, required to equalise gradient on the descent to Keystone from the Iron Mountain section, are worth the price of admission.
This is an area well worth devoting two or three days to. I thought it would be Rushmore and naff-all else. But Devil’s Mountain, Crazy Horse, the Needles and Iron Mountain make the area a destination. The nearest town of Keystone, for accommodation and dining options, is a bit limited but very adequate for a couple of nights. And this is all without bringing in the annual bikers' rally at Sturgis, which is probably on many wish lists for those into this sort of manly get-together.
Having spent the morning going in a complete, 70-mile circle. I need to get on my way to the state capital of Pierre, about 200 miles east.
South Dakota has been a surprise: more to see and do than expected and more variation than any state I’ve visited so far. Over the course of half-a-day and 150 miles, it’s changed from this:
To this:
