Gino's Travels: Canada - USA Tour 2018 -part 3

Tuesday 18 September 2018

Canada - USA Tour 2018 -part 3

We left Chadron and headed North into South Dakota and the Black Hills National park, wonderful scenery, great weather and this time we even saw some Bison, Passing the town of Custer we wanted to check out the Crazy Horse statue as we passed through the Black Hills, the Indian version of Mount Rushmore. Crazy Horse was chief of the Sioux tribe and a great leader, he and Chief Sitting Bull helped defeat Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876). He was arrested in 1877 in Nebraska and killed in a scuffle with his guards. As we passed the statue we couldn't actually see much difference from 5 years ago, the statue is a kind of job creation scheme, much of the work done by hand, at this rate it'll still not be finished in 200 years time but meanwhile it keeps people in a living.

Lazing around

Burnt trees in the Black Hills

Stepping back in time

Heading into Custer

Crazy Horse monument

Heading to Rapid City, skirting Mount Rushmore

We stopped at Sturgis for a fuel stop and a sandwich from the Gas station passing the Hotel we stayed in 5 years ago, quieter today but just a few weeks ago the scene of mayhem as the annual Sturgis Rally took place when thousands of people gather to party hard.

From Sturgis we took the I 90 to Buffalo, a long road but quite scenic in bits, around 40 miles from Buffalo we went onto reserve so I had to drop the speed, after sitting at 80 -90 mph for so long 60 felt pedestrian, there is a stretch of motorway before Buffalo where there is no Petrol for over 100 miles, easy to get caught out even in America, around 15 miles from Buffalo we pulled into a layby to see if anyone had any spare gas, no luck, It was with huge relief we pulled off the I 90 into town, I figured we could push it to the Gas station the last mile if need be but it made it, just. Buffalo was the scene of the International Norton Rally in 2013 which we attended. We passed the campground we'd used and the Crazy Woman Creek Liquor store that attracted a fair bit of our business back then. We booked into the Occidental Hotel, a Cowboy joint which used to be frequented by the usual suspects, Buffalo Bill must have done his bit for the bar / Hotel trade back then.

It was Saturday night so we had a bit of a party, falling in with a nice couple from Minneapolis, there was a band and the drink flowed freely, a great night had by all. Strangely enough we had tried to arrange a meeting with our good friend and fellow traveler Kevin Stratton from Minneapolis in Rapid City but unfortunately it wasn't to be but we were thinking of you Kevin.

The following day we headed North on the I 90 to Billings, stopping at the town of Garyowen for fuel right next to the Little Bighorn Battlefield by which time we'd crossed into Montana.

We headed to the 12, 191, through the comically named Judiths Gap to Eddies Corner before taking the 87 to Great Falls. By this time we were on the High Plains, not much to see except wheat fields as far as the eye can see, something you don't experience in Europe is that feeling of vastness, the only comparison is when you are at sea and all you can see is the horizon all round and nothing else, its like that except its grain fields with only the odd Farm complex and a ribbon of tar running through. Of course I'd let the speed creep up and eventually incurred the wrath of the Montana State troopers, Trooper Boots was a nice guy though and accepted my explanation about being (a) Scottish (b) Stupid and (c) being unable to convert the Km/h reading on my Canadian bike to MPH, all bollocks of course apart from the Stupid part but a bit of humility goes a long way with these guys and we proceeded to our overnight stay at Great Falls at a reduced speed, just for information, the USA isn't as restrictive on speeding as some people think, on the equivalent of our A roads depending on State / County it can be 70MPH, we were doing 84, oops.