There were two things I’d wanted to do in South Dakota. One of them was to go into the Badlands to a remote campground I’d found and check out the stars at night. I figure that is probably one of the best places there is to see lots and lots of stars. I had decided against it the day before both because it would have taken too much time and because I was darn tired and didn’t want to mess with setting up and breaking down camp.

These guys helped me with my thinking (odd statues in the hotel parking lot):

The other thing was to visit the Minuteman Missle Launch Control Facility. I’d seen this one online and it jumped onto the “must do” list. Knowing that the chances that the tours would be tough to get tickets to I’d decided to get up, leave all my stuff in the hotel and hope that I could get a ticket to one of the earlier morning tours.

I went off to the visitor center and got in line for the tour passes. The folks in front of me got the last passes for a tour that started at 10:30 (it was not quite 8:30) and I started to think that I wouldn’t have time to do the tour. I had to put in enough miles to get a good way through the endless state of Wyoming and also wanted to see Mt. Rushmore so I almost got out of line and took off. Glad I didn’t because it turned out there was *one* ticket left for the 9:00 tour. I grabbed it and scooted over to Delta-01.

The visitor center was about 20 miles *east* of where I’d stayed. My hotel was really close to the missile silo part of the exhibit but the “park” is broken up into three distinct places – visitor center, missile silo and launch control, all separated by quite a few miles. Launch control was in the middle so I first backtracked and then started back west.

I was not disappointed by the tour. Our guide was a retired Air Force major that had served as a “missileer” at this very facility. He was great – funny, knowledgeable and clearly enjoying his job. There are pretty good pictures at the NPS site linked above that cover most of the tour but I snapped a few.

The above ground part of the facility is a fenced in area roughly a half acre, maybe a bit more in size. The building isn’t all that big – about the size of a subdivision house – and looks a lot like it was built for a low to mid level development. Reminded me of my first house, actually.

The SubZero refrigerators caught my eye – we bought one for our last house and while I’ll be the first to admit that it was a very nice refrigerator it was awfully expensive. If one were to buy these two units at a store today, one would spend the better part of $20k.

It is the below ground part that is really interesting… it is a vault built out of huge metal bars and concrete, about four or five feet thick. There’s a door on the entrance that would put any bank vault to shame… about 16,000 lbs of steel and concrete. Again, there are good pics on the NPS site but when the tour guide asked if anyone wanted a picture in front of the command console I was all over that…

…and the older computer systems always interest me. Reliable as all getout but not especially fancy or capable by today’s standards.

The only part of my morning that I could have possibly wished were different is that I forgot my satellite tracker for my trip to the visitor and command centers so there were some miles that weren’t tracked. I got over that really fast.

Having been as lucky as I was to get into the tour I decided to scoot on back to the hotel and skip seeing the missile silo. I’ve seen those before so it wasn’t quite as big a deal to see again and by moving along I decided that I had time to go through Mt. Rushmore on my way west.

So there it is. It was kind of cool to see the mountain but it was exactly what one would expect from all the pictures. You can see it from the road on the way up and I would suggest stopping at the turnout where the mountain is visible, taking pictures there and skipping the official site. Parking was expensive – 20 bucks for a motorcycle?!? – and the facility was a really expensive looking granite structure that I guess was supposed to be impressive.

My last comment on it is that it was busy and hard to get in and out of during the off season. The parking structure is 5 or 6 levels and only the top two were much used, with people driving around and around the second level looking for non-existent spots instead of just going down one. I expect that during the summer it is an absolute nightmare – unbelievably crowded. I won’t be going back unless someone I’m travelling with really wants to.

That got me about halfway through the day. The rest was spent riding across Wyoming, “the endless state”. I did like the 80 mph speed limit but the wind was high enough that I didn’t go a whole lot faster than that. I learned that my mileage is greatly impacted by wind – it’ll knock me down into the 25mpg range at those speeds.

I managed to find a campground in the Bighorn forest that I’d seen from Google maps and thought, “hey, that would be a good spot”. Pulled in shortly before sundown, got everything set up before dark.

I finally had a chance to use my satellite tracker thingie to send text messages. Worked fine, but I did have to climb up out of the valley I was in to get a signal.

There were only a few other people camping there. Some really nice folks in a 5th wheel came over to my campsite bringing firewood with them – they said it was extra. Awfully nice of them to play Welcome Wagon, and I appreciated having my one campfire of the trip. It was cold up there so especially nice.

This was my favorite campsite of the three I used. It was right next to a mountain stream and the white noise it generated made for a really restful night’s sleep.

During the night I woke up and heard something that didn’t quite register… a “tapping” sound on the tent. I think I thought something like, “mmmph… falling leaves” and went back to sleep the first time but later realized that I was getting rained on.

I’d been looking at the weather for the past week and had convinced myself that I was pretty much safe from any bad stuff. This was the beginning of my education – I put on my waterproof jacket and set off hoping for the best. I decided that I’d hate myself if I didn’t go check out the beginning of the Mississippi river so my first stop was a couple of miles away in the park.

Apparently there weren’t many people that thought it was a good idea to check out the headwaters that morning. The walk from the parking lot to the actual headwaters seemed to take forever. First you go across a bridge over the river…

…and wind through the trees for a while. It reminded me of a Disney ride line, not sure exactly how much longer it is going to take. There were signs along the way, “800 ft”, “400 ft”, but the walk seemed farther than that. Fake distance signs?

At last, here it was:

Pretty neat to see, especially in light of what it had looked like a couple of days before as I rode past it. After going past all the water in Minnesota I could well imagine that after it traveled for a while would pick up a lot more as it went on its way…

Then I retraced my steps back to the empty parking lot, hopped on the bike and set off. I was lucky that morning – the clouds were threatening rain and I did catch a few sprinkles but for stayed dry. I wasn’t tempting fate and had decided my next stop was nearly all the way across South Dakota so I didn’t make any stops for a while… I’d filled up right before stopping the night before so I had a couple hundred miles to burn.

I went through Fargo, thinking that somehow I’d see something that reminded me of the movie. Nope – it is a fairly small city and there wasn’t anything special about it… seemed kind of dumpy… and with no reason to stop I moved along.

North Dakota went pretty quickly. I had less than 100 miles in the state, cutting from Fargo diagonally into South Dakota. It was right before leaving that I had my one accident… at a gas station I’d filled up and grabbed something to eat and had decided to walk the bike away from the pumps. Bad idea – loaded up it is pretty top heavy and more importantly, plain old heavy. As I was trying to shove it up a slight incline I pushed too far to the side and it went over, falling away from me.

This was the second time I’d dropped my nearly brand new bike and I was quite pissed at myself. A couple of guys ran over real fast and helped me get it upright and there was virtually no damage – the Canyon Cages I’d installed after my first drop did their job. I was clearly upset and one of the guys said something like, “it’s OK, just start again”… and so I did.

I realized that I have a bad habit that simply doesn’t work for riding a motorcycle… I don’t usually eat breakfast. Both times I dropped the bike were in the morning before eating and after riding for a couple of hours. Well, riding isn’t exactly strenuous but it does work the body some when I don’t eat I wind up a bit shaky. As I ate and thought about it I decided that from then on I’d eat before getting on the bike.

The damage was slight – a few minor scratches on one of the side cases, a bit on a mirror and damaged powder coating on the cage bars. Could have been a lot worse – in fact, if I hadn’t had the cages on I expect that in addition to the side case getting mangled that the fairing would have taken some heavy damage as well.

No, I did not take pictures. Not going to, either.

Moving on, I got back on and proceeded into South Dakota. The weather cleared up as the morning went on and the ride through the northeastern part of the state was delightful. The picture at the top of the post is from that part of the ride… really pretty farmland with quite a bit of water. Nice roads with gentle curves and hills made for a great morning and the drop quickly faded.

I was cutting diagonally from northeast corner towards the Badlands in the southeast, taking various highways, turning west and south as I went along. The terrain started to get more brown, more hilly and with fewer curves. It was a long day and somewhere along the line I decided I wasn’t going to camp that night and made a reservation at a hotel. I pulled in to the hotel parking lot right before dark, ate Subway and collapsed.

Having had a great meal the night before I wound up sleeping pretty well. I have finally found that I don’t have to hate sleeping in tents – one of the things I brought is an inflatable air mattress. Cheap and very comfortable. A bit bulky and heavy – not sure what I’d do if I was riding two-up but since I wasn’t…

Had a chance to take a better look around in the morning. Turns out that, yes, the mosquitoes are around then as well. Not as bad as in the evening but I decided that buying effective bug spray was high on the list.

My timing for the trip was pretty good. The trees were starting to turn towards the fall colors – they’ll be better in maybe a week or two but it was very pretty. I figured that a few more shots of the trees and motorcycle couldn’t hurt so here they are:

It took me forever to break down my little campsite and get packed up again. I don’t really know what the time killer was – nothing seemed to take all that long and while I wasn’t hurrying I also wasn’t messing around too much. I finally got going around 10 and headed towards Mille Lacs Lake.

What I was really surprised by was how big that sucker is. I’ve seen most of the great lakes and this one was large enough that it reminded me of them, dropping off the horizon in parts. This lake is well known in the winter as being one of the most popular places for ice fishing. Apparently it is common to see about 5000 little ice fishing huts pop up on the frozen surface filled with people that think it is a good time to sit in a little hut, cut a hole in the ice and try and catch starving fish. I could see doing it if I was still drinking but any more it sounds rather boring.

The lake impressed me, though, and looks like it would be a great place to hang out for the summer. I’m guessing the water is a mite chilly any time of year, but what a fun place to drive a boat.

Minnesota in the early fall is really beautiful. I was hoping to head up to International Falls and check it out. There probably aren’t a whole lot of things that are all that great about International Falls. It is one of the cities that claims has the coldest weather during the winter – it is, in fact, nicknamed “Frostbite Falls”. Whether that name came from the hometown of Rocky and Bullwinkle or vice versa I don’t know but that’s another thing that has come from there.

It is also right across the river from Canada and I’d thought that I’d cross the border, just to say I did. I’ve never been to Canada… and I still haven’t. I stopped about halfway to my destination at one point to get gas and water. Cute little store, took only cash, no ATM or credit. Gave me a chance to use part of my Secret Stash O’ Cash and feel pretty good about my foresight.

By this time I’d figured out why the slogan on the Minnesota license plates is “10,000 Lakes”. I’m sure that there are that many, as long as one calls something like this a lake:

These things are all over the place… the roads wind between them, which is pretty fun on a bike. I was really surprised with the great condition of the roads. They don’t look like they’re constantly rebuilt but don’t show a bunch of frost damage. I would guess that they get covered with snow early on in the winter and keep a layer through most of the season. There are also snowmobile right of ways along the side of most roads – looks like that’s the preferred method of travel for a lot of folks.

Unfortunately, I figured out that I just didn’t have enough time to hit Frostbite Falls, let alone go into Canada. It would have added nearly another day to my trip and I just didn’t have the time. I reset my GPS to take me over to my next planned stop at the Mississippi headwaters, and that’s where I made my camp for the night.

I didn’t spend much time at all in Wisconsin. I had a limited amount of time to get back and had promised that I wouldn’t spend too much time riding in a day. The question of how much “too much” would be was never really nailed down but I have a talent when it comes to things taking longer than I think they will.

This is me in front of my brother’s house looking either confused, angry or both.

I don’t think that I was either of those things. Quite frankly, I was more than a little bit nervous at that point. I’d never spent more than a couple of days at a time on a motorcycle trip and I think my longest two day ride was “only” about 500 miles. This would be at least 2200 miles and possibly more, all by myself through places I’d never been. That was kind of the point, but nevertheless was a bit intimidating.

By any measure, my mother was much more nervous and concerned than I was.

I set off headed towards the Mississippi River. I set my nav unit to find a twisty route and it did a great job. I wish I’d taken pictures because the roads were pretty amazing running through the Wisconsin countryside. Nice curves, beautiful farms… lots of postcard worthy scenery.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures until I was on the road running along the Mississippi on the Minnesota side. It was a really nice road. Not too twisty but that was OK as for most of the ride the scenery was really nice.

Notice how wide it is along here. There are spots a bit further up that are even wider – it’s an absolutely enormous river at this point. Keep that in mind for future posts… we’ll come back to it.

The picture at the very top of the post is of the road I was on when I took these last three.

I went through Minneapolis / St. Paul on the way up through Michigan. I screwed up my timing and hit it right at rush hour traffic. Turns out that there is a rush hour in Minneapolis and that it sucks just as bad as any other city. Spent quite a bit of time with my boots on the pavement.

After getting out of the city I was getting a bit worried because I was starting to run out of daylight. My target destination was Mille Lacs Kathio State Park. I had found it on the web along with a number of other spots I thought would be interesting and at good stopping intervals but my spacing was only theoretical. My GPS didn’t have an exact location, either, so I was going on memory for the last bit of directions.

I pulled in to the site after the sun had dropped below the horizon but before dark. The place was absolutely empty – I didn’t see a single person from the time I got to the gate until the next day. I did see mosquitoes. Lots and lots of mosquitoes, and these suckers were aggressive. I had insect repellent but it was just the stick type and wasn’t very effective.

I was glad I’d practiced setting up the tent. I would not have wanted to try and figure it out for the first time under those circumstances. By the time I was done it was pretty close to dark, I was exhausted and so I crawled into my tent.

This was on the 22nd, which happened to be my birthday. It was actually a pretty nice birthday with a nice day, great ride and successful finish. I enjoyed a gourmet feast:

Yes, that’s some sort of beef stick combined with the Cheez ‘n Crackers that come in the plastic packs… you know, four crackers, a small tub of “cheez product” and a plastic spatula to spread the cheese. Yummy.