Scooting along...

This is the reason we are here.  Well, riding, and getting away from south Texas for a while.  We have had a couple warm days here, but very little humidity.  And Hart Ranch is a delight. 

Today was forecast to be a high of 83º, low humidity, and mostly sunny.  Single digit breeze.  It was in the upper 70s when we geared up and headed out.  I mentioned the "tar snakes" a post or two ago - here's what they look like...

Very irregular, and slick.  Not motorcycle friendly at all.  As of now, these have been refreshed on Spring Creek Road, the road we take to get to the good riding roads.  It's only a few miles long, so we just slow down on it now.

Coming up to Neck Yoke Road, a Harley went by us before we made the turn.  Riding behind him, is a reminder of how nimble our scoots are...

We had no issue keeping up with the HD; in fact, we slowed our usual pace so we weren't right up behind him.  Don't take that wrong - the Harley Ultra Classic is a great road bike and would be my first choice to go coast to coast on two wheels.  But, it weighs well over 800 pounds, and that is a lot of inertia to push through the tight curves.  We could see him working his brakes much harder than we were.  The bike will do it, but it isn't exactly "flickable," a term often used for scooters.  With a speed limit of 50mph and much slower than that in the curves, the power of the engine is less of a concern than the nimble handling.

He made the turn onto south Rockerville Road and so did we.  We just kept our pace leisurely.

A right turn on the highway into Keystone; we bypassed Keystone, taking the Old Hill City Road instead.  Good curves, a bunch of railroad crossings, since the 1880 Train between Hill City and Keystone runs along here.

We had planned a stop at the grocery store in Hill City.  Coming up to the Hwy 385 junction, we had been following two other motorcycles, and saw the train leaving town...

They had quite a crowd on the train.  With the train past, we made our turn and headed for the store...

Joan went in to get some chili and to see if they had any Caffeine Free Diet Coke (nope); I stayed with the bikes.  I mentioned that splash on the pavement in the parking spot she picked... she thought it was someone's melted ice cream... I think someone puked.  Either way, I wasn't going to park in it.

We rolled through Hill City after leaving the store - town was busy...

Hill City has done a remarkable job at promoting their small town - it always seems to be busy with tourists when we're here.  South of Hill City, we stayed on Hwy385 until the junction with Hwy 244, that runs past Mt. Rushmore.  There were two Harleys behind us at the light, revving their throttles... pretty sure they didn't want to get caught behind "a couple of scooters."

The light turned green, and we were off.

No issue with us holding up anyone.  ;-)  It wasn't long before we caught up with traffic, but the tourists were moving along at the speed limit... one in a row.  We rode past the Presidents, anticipating our turn onto Iron Mountain Road...

There was a full size van (Iowa plates) that turned in front of us on Iron Mountain Road.  It was slow going for a while...

They eventually pulled to the side enough for us to pass - no traffic for a while, since his van had been moving around 18mph, where the speed limit is 35.

We got held up at both splits by another car, but we came to a stop before heading into the splits, to let that car get far enough ahead so we could enjoy those tight curves.  Once around that car, we had clear road ahead...

Until we came up behind a CanAm trike.  I'm sure these can be driven in a sporty manner, it is just rare that we see that...

The trike finally pulled aside so we could pass (double yellow line), giving us unencumbered riding until we pulled into a turn out to re-hydrate...

A Japanese older couple with a 20-something kid had pulled in before us.  The younger guy spoke perfect English and let us know that he would be landing a drone just ahead of where we were parked.  I asked him about it after he landed it - I thought it might me a Mavic Mini, but found out it was an older Mavic Air (prior to the 2).  That would be great for getting some overhead shots on these twisty roads... I think he was using it to get a shot of Mt Rushmore in the distance (you can't fly a drone in a National Memorial area).

Back to the riding, we turned off of Iron Mountain Road onto Playhouse Road...

There were a couple cars in the other lane, but we had our side of the road to ourselves the entire way.  Then, on to south Rockerville Road again...

Same thing: no traffic!  Instead of making the turn towards Hart Ranch, I suggested we go to Hwy 16 where we could top off fuel at a station that sells non-ethanol.  I had ulterior motives: looking at the miles on my odometer and my fuel gauge (just under half), I was estimating fuel mileage in the 100mpg range.  I was wrong.  I got 92.5 mpg.  Joan got 102.5 mpg.  10mpg better than my Vespa.  This is one competition I will never win... but I am not complaining about 92.5.

Back to Hart Ranch.  We got some Rufus time, and Joan made a chili and Fritos snack for us.  The chili is for the hot dogs and burgers I requested for supper, but there is plenty to add in this snack.

A delightful day in the Black Hills.  Looking at weather back home, the rain bands from Hanna have moved beyond our island, but are still making a mess inland.