All Aboard to Rapid: June 2009

The Big Fish, Ma and kids 4&5 made a short visit Saturday-Tuesday. They came bearing a gift of 48 delicious bottles of New Glarus's Cracked Wheat, adding to the stash from our last bootlegging trip in May.

First stop...the SD Bandlands. Actually the first stop was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, but since it is east river I'm not counting it. Everyone was pretty amazed at the rock formations, especially when only a few miles away the Black Hills are mainly granite. Big Fish and I pedaled the Badlands in March, but it was a first time visit for the rest of the crew.

Day two was called the Kingsbury death march...by Mom. The march consisted of a whirlwind trip to the northwest Hills. After taking a backcoutry route we ended up in Spearfish Canyon.

The day was perfect with little cloud cover and great temps which equals a high volume of tourists. Usually this would annoy the piss out of me, but I keep telling myself that this is why I don't have to pay a state income tax. That and I don't have a legitimate job.

From the canyon we rolled into Spearfish proper. The original goal was to head up to Tinton Road to watch some of the Super D, but I was sidetracked by a police officer. Apparently it's illegal to make a U-turn in an intersection...who knew?

Sgt Klunder was even less impressed that I wasn't giving him my full attention and made me sit in his prowler. This is when he proceeded to tell me about respect and some other stuff. What an egoist. How in the wrong could I have been, I only got a warning. Paps was even less impressed with my abilities so we skipped the super D and went directly to Devil's Tower.

I love, love, love Devil's Tower, the family dug it as well. I will take anyone at anytime. We all hiked the Red Beds loop and the interior loop to get all the perspectives of the tower. Both hikes are fairly easy, with hardly anyone on the Red Beds loop.

On the way back to Rapid we made a game time decision to hike Bear Butte...another one of my favorites.

Bear Butte is unique because it is northeast of the Hills and gives great views of both prairie and the Back Hills. The Butte is very sacred to the native people, during the hike we could hear drums being played in the distance. Ma thought that they were playing her death march song. I reassured her that they if she did not make it to the top, the Natives would most likely scalp her.

After it was all said-n-done we hiked about 12 miles on Sunday, and no one lost their scalp.

MONDAY, MONDAY, MONDAY

As Eamonn would say, "I'm, like, not gonna lie" we were T I R E D the next day. So we thought we would play it cool and go see Crazy Horse and Rushmore. Pretty uneventful except for the huge faces carved out of mountains.

I still can't believe how big Crazy Horse is. The head alone is bigger than Mt. Rushmore. Who knows if it will ever get to completion, but I hope I'm alive if it happens. Dad seemed to be pretty stoked to see it. There is also a ton of visitor information, the price of admission is steep but it's well worth it.

From Crazy Horse we moved to Rushmore, which is about 30 minutes way. P-diddy and I went at our own pace and lost the rest of the crew for awhile. We ended up finding them at the visitors movie on how Rushmore was created...it's lame people. Go to the Monument, get the ice cream and watch the Discovery channel if you want the details.

The Last Day

The final day was a good one. Dad and I rode from Keystone to Harney Peak on the Norbeck scenic byway. What a ride!

Great roads, views, climbs, descents...it's all great. Dad suffered a bit, but it was the best I've seen him ride. We could see Rushmore for quite a ways.

While Paps and I were riding, Mom and the kids did the president walk in downtown Rapid City. Ma thought it would be a good idea to grope Taft's ass...what a sicko.

After our ride and president perversion walk we all hiked Harney Peak. 3.5 and 3.5 down, the final leg of the death march. The Harney Peak #9 trail head starts at Sylvan Lake and goes straight up. During the hike their are very distant views of the peak, and it's wild to think that it's only a few miles way.

Harney Peak is the highest point in SD at about 7200 ft. At the top is an old fire tower that gives views of Rushmore, Hill City, the Needles and Custer State Park. It was a great couple of days and even better that the fam really enjoyed our new home. KP's parents are on the way this weekend. Both sets of parents in two weeks...yikes!

Lately it seems I've been cleaning the bike more than riding it. Thunderstorms roll in around 3 and roll out after dark. So were do you ride in Rapid when everything is wet? Storm Mtn of course. Storm is quite an anomaly, no matter how much it rains the trails are very ride-able. Dirkness and I rolled there Monday during a down poor and left no tracks. Crazy?

Tim, Tucks, Lars, K-combs and myself rode last nigh after closing the shop. We drove up in 10k worth of vehicles with 35k worth of Santa Cruz product on or inside our vehicles. It is comparable to a dude with master-blaster-sound-system in his mom's ol'89 Toyota Corolla. "Damn it feels good to be a gangstar."