Rapid City, South Dakota

We’ve been here in Rapid City two nights now. The drive from Valentine was more good riding road although the west central Nebraska run didn’t have much in the way of scenery, just rolling hills in cattle country. Once we headed north to South Dakota it got better and when we went trhough Wounded Knee and the Badlands it was very nice except for the rough roads on the Lakata Indian Reservation.

The first night a huge thundertorm was in the area but off to the east and we sat and watched a spectacular thunderstsorm on the horizon for an hour or more.

We had planned a sight seeing trip yesterday to the Badlands National Park visitor center and the Minuteman Missle sight which also has passport stamps but we decided to stop by the Harley dealer here to see about new slip-on mufflers. I anticipated that they would not be able to install them for a day or so but the told me to pull around to the service bay and they had them installed in two hours. But by the time it was done it was clouding up and sprinkling so we stayed in camp rather than go for a ride.

I decided on the Supertrapp model and the bike is much, much quieter now. I won’t be hearing how good it sounds as much but Von and Bentley will certainly appreciate how much quieter it is going down the road. Must be a sign of getting older to want quieter pipes.

I talked to Aaron yesterday and he is starting his hike on the Continental Divide this morning. He was at EAst Glacier, Montana and had met up with 10 people or so who are starting at the same time. The permits allow a maximum group size of 4 people and there are a lot of folks doing the hike so he will have plenty of company. We will try to meet up with him somewhere along the way when he comes into town to re-supply.