Day 7 (9/12/11)

I pulled out of the Blackhills this morning. It is so nice camping in the west as it is rare to have dew all over everything in the morning. The air is so dry that even though it gets cold, it almost never reaches the dew point. Packing a wet tent is not one of my favorite things to do. In any event, it was bright and sunny and I headed up through Lead, SD where the famed Wild Bill Hickock met his doom. The blackhills are a treat to ride through as there is dense pine forest everywhere and the smell is heavenly. These are the moments that you relish and are glad you are not in a car where you miss all the little temperature changes and smells. The pine trees are so thick that they hill sides are nearly black. I could see a lot of evidence of the bettles though that are killing off the pines. It is shame to see these old stand timbers being defoliated. Apparently they do controlled burns of them to allow the seeds in the pine cones to germinate and start a new forest. But as you might guess, that takes many years. This is happening all over the west and apparently tomorrow I will see a lot more of it on the say to Yellowstone. Once I hit I-90 it was a quick trip over to Devil's Tower. This is an amazing structure that just juts out of the surrounding hills and I believe is 600 feet high. If I recall, it was moletn rock that was forced up under pressure and cooled as it came to the surface. If I had more time I would google it and refresh my memory of the full story. In any event, it is amazing to say the least. After visiting and having a quick lunch there, I headed on across Wyoming to Cody, where I stopped for the night. I had two choices of routes, and I elected to take Rte 14 across the Big Horn Mountains. As a youngster, our family almost met our maker here when my mother was driving our car and towing a rented travel trailer on a family vacation. She came up on a turn too fast, reached through the steering wheel to apply the trailer brakes (this was back in the day before they worked off the brake pedal) and then she had to turn the car to make the curve. She paniced and we were all over the road. My dad reached over from the passenger side and applied the trailer brakes to straighten us out, but all I can remember is screaming and tires squeeling. We survived but not after a lot of tears and some serious praying. There were no guard rails in those days and the drop offs were well over a thousand feet. My GPS today had me well over 8,000 feet as I crested the top and went across the 30 or so miles of the plateau. After a steep picturesque decent into Shell Wyoming it was a straight blast across dead flat high country to Cody. Wyoming has such varied terrain, based on where you are in the state. I met a guy and his wife while having dinner tonight that just got back from 5 days in the wilderness together on horseback hunting elk. I can not even think what it would be like to broach a trip like that to Adele. I know for sure, she would not go out into the wilderness on a horse for 5 days no matter what! He said they took 5 horses on the trip. They rode two and had supplies on one and took two extra to pack out an elk if they got one. They did not. He was quite dissapointed and complained that the wolves have moved into the area and are wiping out the elk herd. The trip took them 40 miles into an area where there are no roads at all, no people and no houses. He said they carry GPS for safety, but basically navigate by horse trails that go all through the area. When they got up and walked away after dinner, you could tell they had spent 5 days in the saddle. :-) Heck, I wonder if I am looking like that after 7 days on the bike. If so, I better go out and buy a Stetson hat. I definitely look out of place wearing a BMW motorcycle baseball hat. Oh well, off to Yellowstone and beyond tomorrow. Apparently there are fires between me and there, so I hope I don't have to change my route. Out here that can mean hundreds of miles of extra riding.