Of course, I assumed that since Friday was sunny all day long, that Saturday would be as well, but no such luck. It started as a wet, rainy day which slowed me getting on the road. I spent some time making sure that batteries were charged, playlists were ready in iTunes, and everything was ready for the road.
It might be worth a short side note to discuss gear and what works and what hasn’t. Obviously, I’m not at all thrilled the battery life of my HTC Droid DNA, and I never did purchase any add-on external power supply. The Sony DSC-RX100M2 was recommended to me by Michael Rosen and also the staff at Glazer’s Photo store in Seattle, in addition to the picture quality, the size, and the range of controls, I’m exquisitely thrilled with the ability to control the camera with my smart phone. There are a variety of things I can do from actually use the phone screen as a view-finder and trigger the shutter from my phone, to transfer images wirelessly from the camera to the phone, in order to post on social media. My only frustration is that the camera-raw format the device uses is not .raw but .arw which is not supported by my current version of Adobe Lightroom. Adobe is pushing to get everything/everyone on the cloud (monthly fees and recurring revenues, rather than one-off charges for software) and the full version of the latest Lightroom is about $80.00, there is no “upgrade” from my current version which will support the new file format. AND, because this would be an all new implementation of the software, none of the catalogue, preferences, or other settings carry over from the existing version. I’m super thrilled about how the bike is running (I’ll discuss some maintenance issues in a few days), I just love the sound it makes, purring along around 80 to 85 miles an hour, it feels good, and the rear view mirrors do not shake and vibrate the way they did on my Sportster. There is enough power in the engine to manage me along with all that I’m carrying up and around all of the mountains that I have crossed, including the continental divide, through Yellowstone. My back-pack and duffel bag, each purchased for this trip, with the intention of being water resistant have performed well keeping things dry inside, and my jacket has kept my body dry. Neither my boots nor gloves are very water resistant, and they have made some of the wet riding less fun that it might otherwise have been. My seat is pretty comfortable, but after a couple hours I do need to get up and wiggle around. I have not had any days were I was genuinely uncomfortable after dismounting the bike, which was definitely an experience I had with the Sportster. I think that a more supportive seat, with a better backrest might have allowed me to ride longer between stretches, and also to have minimized the discomfort toward the end of each day. In the mornings, I can ride 2 to 3 hours without a break, by 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. it is tough to make in 90 minutes.
Anyway, it is Saturday morning, around 10:00 a.m. and my goal for the day is to see Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial/Monument, and then get about ½ way through Minnesota so that my Sunday ride to Madison and Chicago are not too stressful. If you have followed anything about this blog, you know that my goal was ambitious, especially if I wasn’t leaving before 7:00 a.m.
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I found the Crazy Horse Monument easily and rode up, it was a few dollars to get into the site, and I would have gotten more value for my money if I had explored the museum and hiked a bit, but I mostly wanted to grab a photo and get on the road. Rushmore is also pretty easy to find, though it isn’t quite right on the main highway, it is very, very well marked, and a destination for a LOT of tourists, and lots and lots of military in their dress whites.
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Leaving the immediate Rushmore area there is a small town geared towards tourists and bikers, I pulled over and grabbed a souvenir knife and some elastic clips for my chaps. I loved seeing all of the bikes lined up and asked a couple bikers if I could take their photo. It was so interesting to me to see these archetypal characters, who could have dressed and looked pretty much the same over the past 3 or 4 decades, pretty big guys, scoot their glasses up on their head to finger poke at their mobile devices. I guess that we’re all tied to them now.
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There was some interesting scenery on the side roads, but most of the day was covering lots and lots of I90, long, straight, wide roads, with a fair amount of cross-winds, as quickly as I could. It was a good day in terms of weather, the morning rain didn’t return, though as the evening went on menacing clouds did gather. I was getting pretty tired and low on gas when I pulled into Mitchel South Dakota, around 8:00 p.m. For those that don’t know Mitchel is home to the Corn Palace (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2215), built in 1892 and redecorated regularly and something of a wonder among the many, many peculiar roadside attractions in South Dakota. Given enough time, I could have stopped at reptile houses, lots of western themed attractions, dinosaur fossil sites, caves and other geological sites and so much more. I have a special connection to the Corn Palace so this is the one I visited.
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By the time I got back on the road, dusk was approaching, and riding East just makes it come faster, but I was committed to getting into Minnesota. I didn’t get nearly as far into Minnesota as I had intended, but I covered about 450 miles during the day, including several detours, and started to see signs for The Ground Round Restaurant, in Worthington, MN. I hadn’t been to Ground Round in decades, not since the brand was re-born as a more up-scale TGIFridays kind of place. I had a pretty decent rib-eye steak and a nice chat with the waiter. I asked what goes on, Saturday night, in Worthington, he told me not much, but suggested a bar called the Long Branch where “most night, nobody gets stabbed”.
Using my assorted internet connected devices I found an inexpensive motel near the Ground Round, and the highway, checked in and began thinking about the Long Branch.
“Nobody gets stabbed” certainly grabbed my attention, and the reviews online made it sound like the worst, bad dive anywhere, with mean staff and bad drinks. Turns out that the Long Branch is something of a local empire, with the Long Branch Saloon, but also an attached Hispanic dance club and Mexican restaurant. I went in, on the saloon side, and it was pretty dead, with Bob Marley on the juke-box, barely overtaking the Mexican oom-pah music billowing across from the dance club. The bartender was cute, and nice and attentive, and she was the only woman in the bar. I had one drink, and back to the hotel room to fall easily asleep.