If you said, "(with a girl like you), The Beatles, 1964," you get 20 bonus points. If you said, "From the album A Hard Day's Night," you get an additional 10 bonus points.
It's a Sunday. On a holiday weekend. Joan wanted to get laundry done before the machines filled up - she suggested that it would be a good time for me to get out for a ride. I concur. I was thinking it might be early enough to get a good run on Iron Mountain Road, before the crowds fill up the roads. I was partially right... but mostly wrong. I should have known better.
The first half of Iron Mountain Road, from the Custer State Park side, was a delight: traffic was light, and the two vehicles that I came up on both let me get around. As you'd expect from a nice person. The third vehicle in front of me was a Can-Am side-by-side... no license plate, no side mirrors, so not even legal to be on the road. I was behind them for what felt like a painfully long time. I'm sure it was just my perspective, but it seemed that they passed a half dozen places where they could have pulled aside to let traffic around... but, I was the only "traffic."
I finally made a break on the one short straight stretch. The fact that they sped up in that stretch let's you (well, me) know that I made the right move by getting around them. It wasn't long before the slow-going vehicle was replaced with another slow-going vehicle, this time a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Thankfully, the Wagoneer did pull off to the side after going through a tunnel. And it was very quickly replaced with an even-slower-going black Chevy Malibu with Minnesota plates (I don't know why it's always the Minnesota drivers going so damn slow??).
I was behind the Malibu until I turned off at a scenic pull-out parking area. I got a drink of water, stretched my legs, then fired the bike up again and headed out... assuming the slow moving stuff would have had plenty of time to get down the road. Before long, I was behind... wait for it... three slow moving vehicles. The one in the front of the line was a black Malibu, followed by a Can-Am with no license plate, followed by a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Yep, all three of the slowest driven vehicles in western South Dakota were in front of me on one of the best motorcycle roads around. Averaging about 12 miles per hour.
I was stuck behind them the rest of Iron Mountain Road, until two of them turned off towards Mt Rushmore, and the Grand Wagoneer turned towards Keystone, in front of me - but that is a 4-lane road, so I was easily able to get around (even though it sped up - I think they were tired of being behind the Malibu and the Can-Am, too).
Since I lost about half of the good riding on Iron Mountain Road, I turned east on Hwy 40, taking that to South Rockerville Road... yes, one of those backroads I don't talk about with the summer tourists. The riding on SRR was a delight. I took it straight through to Hwy 16 so I could stop at BJ's gas station (where they have non-ethanol regular and premium) to gas up. 75.6 miles per gallon; 10 mpg better than what I had been getting at home.
LOTS of traffic on Hwy 16 (the main highway between Rapid City and Mt Rushmore) back to the turn-off to head back to Hart Ranch.
I did shoot some video today, which I will be working up later. Here's a snapshot from today's ride...
You can't see under the helmet, but there is a big smile on that rider's face. :-)
--------
When I got back from my ride, my girl and my best buddy were sitting out on the patio under the awning...
--------
And, here's the video (took quite a while to upload it)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JLk_p7zsuc
2 comments:
Glad you got in some riding, and sorry about the inconsiderate slow pokes on the road. We dealt with that all the time during summer riding season in Alaska. Ruf sure looks content on mommy’s lap outdoors. It’s 96° here today so we’re hunkered down indoors. It was 63° overnight so we were able to pre-chill the house overnight. As of 5 PM the AC has not kicked on yet.
Had a great visit with a local gal yesterday afternoon. She brought her Emerald harp guitar and her Kestrel. Interesting… Harp guitar is its own weird thing. Kestrel was anemic acoustically, but wonderful plugged in, not unlike a T5. She is a good jazz player and those chords plum confound me. But she loved playing along with Alice’s bass and contra bass flutes. We’ll get together again soon. She REALLY liked my X20 and Rainsong WS.
Hi Earl. 96º?? But, it's a dry heat, right? So is an oven. ;-) It's in the mid-80s here right now, and the a/c in the motorhome is on and off. More on. But, it will cool off overnight, then one more hot one tomorrow. The ride was great - even with the slow moving vehicles.
Sounds like a fun visit with your friend. I've never tried a harp guitar - probably not a good thing for a strummer like me... but that Kestrel sure looks nice!
I'm sure you know the old joke about the difference between a rock guitar player and a jazz guitar play: the rock guy plays three chords for 1,000 people, and the jazz guy plays 1,000 chords for 3 people. ;-)
Post a Comment