Monday – Lusk, Wyoming
Hi everyone, I need to clear up some confusion, so I will do it here and now.
Sorry for the long introduction, but this will stay here for at least a week, so if you have read it once, scroll down for the days update, which starts with the non bold text 🙂
I am receiving a lot of offers of help, chat, food, rides, beer etc and not in that particular order either 🙂 I appreciate all of the offers and I apologise to those who I have missed or gone past without dropping in to say G’day. I always acknowledge and answer all messages, whether they are emails, comments here, PMs from forums or whatever. The only issue seems to be, I sometimes get them after I have been and gone in certain areas. So, to make things a lot easier I will outline a few facts on where I am, where I could be heading and an explanation on what you see here.
For a start I am always going to be behind in the blog, usually two days, maybe more if I do not have net access. So what it says as the date, place etc at the top of the page is out of date, ignore it, it is correct for the time I was there, but I am not there now 🙂 For example, I am writing this in Beuno Vista, Colorado, 2nd July.
There are two ways to know where I am and which way I am going. Look to the left and down a bit, there is a small map, it tells you my current general location. Whenever I get internet access I update this, it takes 30 seconds and is as actual as it can be. If I do not do a blog update, I will always update this map anyway.
The second way and most accurate is to look to the right, there is a link called
Here I Am
SPOT tracks of Where I Am
Click on that link, it will open a new page in your web browser, if I am actually physically riding at the moment, it will be updated every 30 minutes or so, the higher the number flag is the latest position locator. I always turn this off about 5 minutes from where I intend staying, but I am in that general area.
I hope the confusion does not stop the offers of meeting fellow riders from coming in, but now I may get the messages before I actually blow through town. After Rapid City, I will be slowing down a lot more, so I will have more chances anyway.
Today I am heading off, but first thing was to go over for breakfast, now this may look unappetizing, but it fills the hole. Those small things are what they call ‘links’, which is basically sausage meat rolled into small finger size lengths and cooked, they have no skin on them.
Then I went back and installed my oil filler plug, and have a decko at the neoprene face mask I also won 🙂
First stop was to go to Rice Honda/Suzuki, here I was going to buy some heated clothing for the northern parts of my trip. They did not have the pants, nor the socks, but I came away with a jacket, gloves, a controller and a controller clip case for $400, I will still need the pants and socks, I will have to source them from elsewhere, apparently the socks are a discontinued item!
I am on the road and heading south at 9.15am, which is great, it was a short run down to Keystone via a bit of slab and this place is over commercialised, not for me.
After that I had been seeing the signs for a place called Cosmos, but somehow missed the turn and ended up at Mount Rushmore, well I was going here anyway, so why not! I was not intending going in so I just took some photos from different vantage points on the road.
After this I continued on for about 5 minutes before realizing I needed to go back and find the Cosmos place, so I stopped at the info booth in Keystone and was given good directions and eventually found the correct turnoff, like the sign was so big I could not miss it eh! Now this is strange place, it is marked 2 on the map.
The entry price of $9.50 was worth it just for the experience, the first demonstration is two small concrete pads which has a spirit level on them, these are level. The girl in green on the left is way taller than the girl on the right, but when they swap places, now the difference in height is not so noticeable!
Now, this is the original house that was found, if you look at the trees, you will see they are leaning in different directions from the left and to the right.
This is our guide who was fun, as you can see she is on a lean, but in actual fact she is vertical. The house is obviously built funny, maybe 🙂
Inside the house as you walk in it is very difficult to walk up to where I am, there is a physical force making you lean like you are walking up a very steep hill. As you can see, our guide is leaning forward away from the wall she is standing on, but is not falling over.
Inside the room, the natural way to stand is very unusual, it is a weird sensation and makes walking very difficult.
A few more of us tried the wall thing. I am actually very comfortable the way I am standing, but if I relax I get slammed backwards into the wall!
You may think it is all optical illusions, but I could actually ‘feel the force’ 🙂 This next demo shows the enormous lean you have to contend with, but that actual standing spot is level, and is proved by putting the tennis ball on it, it stayed still.
There were a few more demonstrations, in this next photo, you will see a water bottle, plastic of course, a tennis ball and an aluminium tin can, all non magnetic, they are up on the shelves. When they are placed at the bottom of that triangular corner floor bit which the chair is sitting on, they all rolled uphill into the corner! Also that is a flat steel plate hanging from chains, it is not hanging straight at all.
This is from outside where the camera is held level to the house frame, but I am vertical, or I feel I am anyway 🙂
The final demonstration is a height thing again, the tennis ball is used to show everything is level, that is, it did not move when placed at all points on this T shaped slab. The three people are different heights and the guy in black is definitely taller than the blonde girl.
They rotate one position and now you can see the blonde girl is nearly as tall as the chap in black.
And same with the third position, while all the time the short girl is changing as well, but not as noticeable compared to the other two.
Well, that was a fun interlude, a very weird experience and so far there is no explanation of what is happening in that area. Now it is time to head off again, this time I am heading for the place I really wanted to see around this area, beside the Devils Tower, I mean. It is only up the road about 10 miles and is called Crazy Horse Mountain, marked 1 on the map.
This is a mind blowing event, there was a short movie as an introduction to the whole thing and of course the museum with all the photos and artefacts from the beginning etc. This whole enterprise is funded by tourists and donations, no government money will ever be accepted, this way it will always be open for the people. Korczac was an assistant to the guy who did Mt Rushmore and when the Indian chief saw his sculpture prize he asked if he could build a monument to Crazy Horse. This is the result, so far of course, it has taken 60 years to get to this stage!
You can even take a piece of rock from the mountain if you want 🙂
I took a bus tour to the base of the mountain to get a slightly different view point, it is very impressive from up close.
I wandered around for another hour or so, looking at the displays before heading off, for a ride up a road called Iron Mountain road. I fuelled up in a town called Custer, after General Custer of the famous last stand, which is also very commercialised and touristy.
Then I headed east along some nice winding roads towards the junction and through the Custer State Park, as I was not stopping there was no charge, my annual pass is for federal parks not state parks. I actually found a sign for my collection, you beauty, but I did not see any of them.
I saw some deer as well.
A bit further up I saw a bison, these are big when they stand up and are quite scary from a bikers point of view. A lot of people had stopped here for some photos.
This next one was right there, but the car got in front of most of it 😦 I thought I took another photo, but he kept looking at me as his missus was behind him and although I clicked and bolted, I got nothing, oh well!
Then there were some scraggly looking mountain goats.
Some more great winding roads and more buffalo, who needs to pay to go through a state park to see them, they are all over the joint!
These donkeys seemed quite friendly, or are they asses!
Iron Mountain Rd is very narrow, and has some small tunnels to negotiate, the road is very twisty and although my camera isn’t up to the task, all of the tunnels seemed to frame the Mt Rushmore monument, just lucky I guess 🙂
You can see how twisty the road is from my GPS.
This is a pig tail road, you come out of the tunnel, over the bridge, around to where I am and then under the bridge, there were two of these on the way up/down.
Once again, it is hard to see with my camera, but a framed Mt Rushmore, I think Tom had a better photo than mine, maybe he can lend me one 🙂
Here is the next pig tail 🙂
A mountain goat as I head away from this area and south.
I was intending to get to Cheyenne or somewhere near Denver, but it was late in the day, so I just headed south and across the border into Wyoming in that general direction. The terrain had changed from hills to flat open plains and I had a bit of a headwind as well, on top of that it was hot, and of course I was heading south into the heat and the sun.
I eventually needed fuel and I picked the town of Lusk because it was there and grabbed a room. I was pretty tired, but spent a quiet evening doing a blog, but also trying to find out about a place Tom had mentioned, it was an Indian artefact place where they have heaps of stuff for sale. I had no phone service, so that was annoying and I could also not call Jim and Lesley who I was hoping to meet some time tomorrow. I had the rest of the chines meal from last night as it was a huge meal, but I nuked it pretty well, hopefully I will get no ill effects 🙂
Day – 252 miles and 406 km
Trip – 22,152 miles and 35,650 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 