Our last two days in Issaquah were fairly uneventful. We bought some groceries to cook dinner Wednesday night, saw Guardians of the Galaxy and hung out at Price and Nathan’s apartment. On Thursday, we boxed up about half of the stuff we had brought and caught the hotel’s shuttle to a UPS store and shipped it home. It was almost fifty pounds of extra clothes, souvenirs we’d bought along the way, an extra rain suit, and just a whole bunch of stuff we shouldn’t have brought in the first place. That lightened Leon’s bike up quite a bit.
On Thursday night, we met Price and Nathan for dinner at a Thai restaurant near the apartment. We were leaving the next morning, and so it was the last time we would see the kids before heading back to Texas. We hated to leave! It was a great visit, though, and it’s always good to leave before you’re ready to, I guess. (I was still sad most of the next day, though.)
We rode through Washington and into Montana Friday. At our first gas stop, we somehow looked at the radar and thought the big green spot would pass out of our way before we got to it, but instead, it built into a bigger green spot and I got pretty wet before we could pull over and get the rain suits out. Leon’s bike protects him from the rain and the cold a lot better, so he only got a little wet from standing still waiting for me to suit up. But I was fairly soaked and freezing all day.
I’ve heard it, and it’s true: Montana is beautiful. Even in the rain and fog, and even scared (I don’t like riding in the rain) and grumpy (I was wet and cold), I loved the ride through Montana. We stopped Friday in Missoula, which, from what I could tell just passing through, is a pretty cool town.
We had much better weather Saturday when we left Missoula and headed for Sheridan, Wyoming. We got a late start, though, because as we were loading up, we noticed the Ducati motorcycle that had parked under the awning at the hotel had a flat tire. Lucky for the woman it belonged to, Leon had not shipped his mini-air compressor home when we purged our bags in Washington, and he aired her tire up for her so she could make it to a dealership to get it replaced.
It seems that in a place as breathtaking as this, they would have scenic turnouts or even just parking areas where people can stop and take pictures, but they really don’t. There are designated tire chain-up areas, but they seemed to always be in the least picturesque spots. So we exited the interstate a few times and chased down little roads to take some photos.
We left Sheridan Sunday and headed to Devil’s Tower. This is the weird formation, caused by cooled magma now sticking up out of the ground, where they filmed the spaceship scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The interesting thing about Devil’s Tower is that the geologists don’t actually know how it was formed, whether the columns of magma were formed and pushed up out of the ground, or whether they were formed and then water and wind eroded the earth around them, leaving them exposed as they are now. They lean toward the erosion theory. Either way, it’s an immense formation, and my rock-loving husband was fascinated with it.
We walked the trail around the base of the tower. The view looking away is impressive, too.
After our hike around the base, we left and headed east to South Dakota. We stopped for lunch in Spearfish, SD and then rode through Spearfish Canyon. This is a motorcyclist’s heaven. There are narrow lanes with curves, high canyon walls, waterfalls, trees, rocks, smooth pavement, and hundreds of other bikers to wave at and talk to at stops.
One couple we had sat by at lunch was stopped at one of the pullouts, and the guy was working on something on his bike. As Leon passed, he said, “I have a bag of tools on my bike. If you need anything, let me know.” The guy looked up and asked if he had a Torx wrench, and he did, so Leon visited with the guy and his girlfriend while I went and looked at the waterfall we stopped to see.
We came out the other end of the canyon and kept going toward Rapid City. We had three things on the Rapid City area to-do list: Spearfish Canyon (check), the Crazy Horse Memorial, and Mount Rushmore. We decided to do it all that day, so that Monday morning, we could get on the road early.
It made for a very long day, but it worked out well. We went to Crazy Horse first, looked at the monument, walked quickly through the visitor’s center, peed, and then left. I hope they finish it some day, but it really doesn’t look a lot different than it did when Price and Francie and I went in 2008.
We got to Mount Rushmore around 7:00 or 7:30. I had really wanted Leon to see it before it got too dark, because even though they light the faces of the monument after dark, the surrounding scenery is just as impressive as the monument. I don’t think he was able to appreciate it as much as he would have if we’d been there in full daylight, but it was still very pretty.
And had we gotten there earlier, we probably wouldn’t have opted to stay for the after-dark show, which was great. They played a movie about the four presidents and why they were chosen and about Roosevelt’s commitment to conservation. After the movie, they called anyone who had served in the military or who had lost a loved one in military action to the stage to be recognized. It took several minutes for them to make it down through the amphitheater, but they filled the stage. The park ranger said something that got my attention. He said, “For many of these folks, tonight may be the only time they will be publicly recognized for their service.”
I’ve been to events which featured a tribute to the military, and I’ve heard and offered thanks to a service man or woman one-on-one, but I’ve never thought about the public recognition and what that must mean to someone who has given so much of themselves to serve their country. The applause seemed to go on forever, and it still didn’t feel like enough.
We left the park around 10:30 for a nerve-wracking, cold, very dark 40-mile ride to our hotel for the night. We were thankful, not just for getting there in one piece, but for a whole lot more than that.
Live hard and ride easy, friends.
McGeesBeTrippin 