Canyon Trifecta...

We sat down with a map program and laid out today's trip: leaving Hart Ranch, through Rapid City, onto Nemo Road, just north of Nemo turn onto Vanocker Canyon Road to Sturgis, through Sturgis, up Boulder Canyon, through Deadwood, through Lead, over the pass by Terry Peak, take a right at Cheyenne Crossing, and into Spearfish Canyon.  Lunch midway through Spearfish Canyon at Latchstring Inn, through the rest of Spearfish Canyon, back to Sturgis, and then a repeat of Vanocker Canyon (if that road was good first time around), Nemo Road, and back to Hart Ranch.

About 180 miles, and through 3 canyons: Vanocker Canyon, Boulder Canyon, and Spearfish Canyon.  It's the semi-transparent red on the map below...

We rode Boulder Canyon last week (after visiting Sturgis).  Spearfish Canyon used to be my "after work fun ride" for a couple decades.  It has been probably 30 years since we've been through Vanocker Canyon... and it was a gravel road back then... I have heard that it is a great ride: a nice paved highway with lots of fun, sweeping curves.  We'll see.

It was a cool start to the day when we left Hart Ranch, before 9:00am...

Temperature was in the upper 60s, with a forecast of low to mid-70s and mostly sunny; light wind.  I started the day with a wind shirt under my armored mesh jacket; Joan brought her jacket liner, just in case.

Nemo Road was pretty much the way we remembered it: good curves, not the smoothest road surface - still, a fun ride...

The community of Nemo is mostly a guest ranch and a couple bars...

Just north of Nemo, we turned onto Vanocker Canyon Road...

Great road!  Mostly smooth surface and great curves - this may be my favorite stretch of road today.

10% grade coming up...

The up and down combined with the curves adds to the riding pleasure...

Vanocker Canyon eventually opens up to Sturgis...

8 days until "the official" start of the Rally - there is a lot of setting up activity and vendors gearing up for selling their wares to the expected crowd of 500,000.  In the next week, this will chance from a small town to the largest city in the state, with people and motorcycles as far as the eye can see.  But, for now...

At the other end of Sturgis, you head into Boulder Canyon...

Then, into Deadwood - the Days of '76 are underway (big rodeo and celebration); our timing was good to not get caught in traffic here...

Out of Deadwood, you pass through the small community of Central City and just catch the edge of Lead.  Lead used to have the largest goldmine in the Americas (Homestake), but that closed up when we still lived here.  There is scientific research being done in parts of the former mine, but it doesn't employ nearly as many people as Homestake used to (around 2,000 at its peak).

About this time, the weather went from partly cloudy to: we just missed the rain.  The roads were wet and the temps dropped to 59º as we went over the pass near Terry Peak.

We made our turn at Cheyenne Crossing, and pulled into the store there.  They have one gas pump, and Joan was getting low on gas.  You can tell it is almost "Rally time": they had a line drawn through the price at the pump, and it was marked up an additional 50¢ per gallon.  Seriously, they didn't even take the time to change it on the pump.  We passed... yeah, her scoot is only going to use a gallon or so, but it was the principle.

On the bright side, the clouds were breaking and there was blue sky as we rode into Spearfish Canyon...

As planned, we stopped at the Latchstring Inn for lunch, about mid-way through the canyon...

The food was good, but I think our waitress is going to show up on a milk carton - tables around us with different waitresses were getting regular attention, so we know it is possible to get good service there.

Back on the scoots and through the prettiest part of Spearfish Canyon...

A stop at Bridal Veil Falls (flowing pretty good with all the moisture they've had)...

Proof that I was along today...

Back to riding the canyon...

We didn't ride into Spearfish (another day, maybe with the car), but stopped just outside of town to gas up.  The plan was to take back roads to Sturgis, but the South Dakota DOT had other plans: two of the roads we started on were closed due to construction... so, after going about 10 miles out of the way, through the prairie, we got on the Interstate...

Back through Sturgis...

I did shoot a video as we rode through town, but again: to much mirror checking and looking both ways at intersections.  If we get back this way, I'll get some video with the camera attached to the bike.  On the far side of Sturgis: the start of a winery...

All re-run from here - we enjoyed Vanocker Canyon so much that we decided to "take the long way" home and ride back through there again...

We rode about 180 miles today; 3 seasons of weather, from the 50s to the upper 70s, sunny to spitty rain; didn't have to pull out the new rain gear, though.