Day 6 - Crossing South Dakota

Tuesday July 29th was originally planned to be a idle day so that I could ride around the Badlands and Sturgis areas. It has some of the best roads for riding with lots of twists, turns and scenery. When I looked at the plan I realized that the trek to Madison, Wisconsin would be nearly 800 miles which was the longest ride of the trip. I decided to skip some of the optional riding and try and get halfway to my destination. I am sure I will come back to the area sometime in the future.

I caught up on paperwork and planning for the trip spending nearly six hours which included catching up on my blog. I finally left the hotel around 1PM, got gas, and headed to the Black Hills Harley Davidson store a few miles away. This is a huge event where the service department turns into an assembly line to change oil or tires. They also have nearly every major vendor that sell motorcycle accessories and performance equipment. I went to the Kuryakyn tent and bought a set of highway foot pegs for my bike. They have a test directly across from their sales tent where they install the parts. Because it was a slow day they had the bike ready to go in thirty minutes. This was enough time to check out most of the displays and have a quick bite to eat. These foot pegs give me another position to stretch my legs while riding. I finally hit the road around 4:00PM.

After seeing nearly 1,000 roadside signs in a hundred mile stretch of I-90, I decided to stop at Wall Drugs in the town of Wall for a butterscotch sundae. I rode almost all of the way across the state of South Dakota and spend the night in Sioux Falls just shy of the Minnesota border.

I plan on riding to Austin, Minnesota and check out the Hormel plant there and then head south to cut through Northeast Iowa. This detour means that I will have rode through 12 states by the end of the day. I am looking forward to getting my bike into the shop to take care of some normal maintenance and to get every bug every created in the States of Montana and South Dakota removed from the front of my bike. One of my major tasks is cleaning the windshield and helmet visor before starting out.

The best part of today is spending the next two nights with our daughter to enjoy some family time and being able to sleep in tomorrow morning.