Heading to Stugis, South Dakota...

September 16, 2012
Partly cloudy
Lat/Lon 44 15.72N 103 34.5W

A few misc. pics today...

Pretty flora of plains.  

White aster, yellow hairy aster, prickly pear and mexican hat .

Nitro in her usual spot.  Always alert and on guard.  Keeping a sharp eye out for bad guys, coyotes, squirrels, leaves, or anything else that moves on or near the highway.


Emmy in her usual spot.  Chillin' at our feet, an' catchin' a few zzzz's.

This is Sturgis, South Dakota, population appx. 7,000.  We are staying here for a few days because it's centrally located to several places we want to go.

Seriously, I have never seen an entire town so completely obsessed by, built around, and totally dependent on, motorcycles, (mostly Harleys).

During 'Rally Week', (the end of August),  they get over 500,000 people in this little town!  Can you imagine?  Just the amount of, uh,.. poop generated,... that would take 10,000 porta-pottys!

You couldn't PAY ME ENOUGH to be here during that mess.  Ugh!

So, heading south to Mt. Rushmore,...

I've often wondered why the Black Hills of South Dakota were called the Black Hills. Well, now I know.









Coal, silver and other minerals that I can't spell or pronounce literally turn the hillsides black.

And no visit to the Black Hills would be complete, without a Black Hills Gold souvenir.

Next up - Mt. Rushmore.