What an epic report & trip Tony ! Someone should tell your son what a great daddy he has got as I know of no-one who did go through all of this just to make it happen. Followed you on FB and found the fotos & scenery just amazing !! Looking forward to meet you soon and get a first hand report from you while we can take care of some full bottles......
Totally different to some sissies sitting on their PC's and posting one - worders & rubbish and never riding any serious tour.
cheers, Franz
Day 5! Today we're going to ride the Iron Mountain Road, the Wildlife Loop and the Needles Highway!!
Another beautiful day- early start, nice and cool and not a cloud in the sky!
We take the 244 from Hill City, past Mount Rushmore to Keystone where the Iron Mountain Road (16A) begins. The 244 is a beautiful road in its own right, taking us through the spectacular rock formations that make up Mount Rushmore-
Riding past Mt Rushmore-
The Iron Mountain road (US 16A) is famous for its scenic, one-lane tunnels aligned to frame Mount Rushmore, its "pigtail bridges", and sections where the highway has been divided into single (and narrow) lanes on each roadway.
Pigtail bridge (not my pic):
Such care was taken not to disturb the landscape that some sections of the road actually divide into one-lane one-way ribbons that swoop and bound through mixed pine and deciduous forest. I've never seen a road like this in the US before- quite unique!
The Iron Mountain road, along several other scenic roads in the Black Hills, was originally laid out by Governor Peter Norbeck to create a very scenic, slow-speed road for tourists. The section of US 16A from SD244 to SD89 that we are riding today is known as the Peter Norbeck Memorial Byway in honor of the governor.
The numerous small tunnels insure that there are no large trucks or RV's on these roads. Lots of bikes though! I have tons of video I need to go through- hopefully I got a good video of this amazing road which I'll add here later.
We hadn't had breakfast yet to after we entered Custer State Park we stopped at the State Game Lodge, a beautiful old building built in 1920 that served as the "Summer White House" for President Calvin Coolidge and was visited by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
They had a pretty good looking breakfast buffet and we were both pretty hungry-
Father and son at the State Game Lodge, Custer State Park, Black Hills, SD-
The stuffed animals in the dining room were a nice touch
My son at the Custer State Park Game Lodge, Black Hills, South Dakota
Next we ride the Wildlife Loop Road through Custer State Park and play chicken with some 2000 pound Bison!
Wow, they don't call it the Wildlife Loop for nothing- my son and I were keen to see some animals and we were not disappointed!
Bison everywhere!
There are some 1300 Bison in Custer State Park and suddenly we found ourselves surrounded! They look pretty docile but I know they can be unpredictable and honestly, sitting on a bike, these were a bit too close for comfort.
I gave the camera to my son and he took the following pictures- not bad for a 5 year old, eh??
We were kind of stuck in a traffic jam of sorts- cars stopped to take pictures of the bison and I kept my eyes open and hand on the throttle thinking that IF a bison charged at us I'd try to keep the car in front of us between us and the bison...
Fortunately some obnoxiously loud Harleys came by and I figured if the bison were going to attack anything it would probably be one of them before us
Well, we made it out un-gored and with some great pictures. Kristhawee sure was excited to have seen his first Bison- some of them were so close we almost could have touched them!
Kristhawee took these pictures too- I think these are Pronghorns?
Yeah, pretty sure that's a Pronghorn (interesting animals- we learned a lot more about them when we were in Wyoming).
Custer State Park's "Begging Burros"! (Aka Feral Donkeys)
These affable creatures are superficially similar to donkeys, but are more closely related to the African wild ass, which survives in semi-arid scrub and grasslands of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. This makes them well-suited to survival in the water-stressed Black Hills.
Despite all the warnings about not approaching "wild" animals, it was pretty apparent that these burros aren't terribly "wild".
Kristhawee and one of the Black Hills Begging Burros
Very cute animals-
Even though Kristhawee didn't have any food for them, they didn't seem to mind his company-
Two kids checking each other out-
Wanna be my friend??
This one, with nostrils flared and eyes wide, looks like he's thinking about taking my hand off
We survived the burros, continued on and enjoyed the rest of the Wildlife Loop-
Hard to believe, but the Needles Highway was even more impressive than the Iron Mountain road!
Time to fire up the GoPro (though it's going to take me a while to edit videos)
Like the Iron Mountain road the Needles Highway is very narrow, has lots of sharp hairpin turns, low tunnels and the road has very little traffic. The first of many tunnels that were blasted through solid granite back in the 1920's-
Over the shoulder shot of the tunnel we just rode through-
14 miles long, the Needles Highway winds through pine and spruce covered mountains and the amazing granite "needles" for which the area is famous. In this pic you can see the Cathedral Spires off in the distance, a massive collection of rock towers pointed to the heavens.
We stopped here for some water and snacks and to take in the amazing views-
My son took some pictures of me- once again I'm quite impressed by his steady hand-
I regret not bringing more batteries and/or a charging cable for the GoPro. It's getting pretty old and the battery doesn't seem to last much more than an hour. It ran out of juice about this time so from here on I was snapping pics with the Canon while riding. Perhaps not the safest way to ride, but that Beemer pretty much drives itself
Interesting history about the Needles Highway- I'd assumed it was built by the Civilian Conservation Core in the 19030's as part of Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal", but I was wrong.
South Dakota Governor Peter Norbeck wanted to simultaneously preserve and provide access to some of the most beautiful regions of the Black Hills. In 1919, he designed the route for the Needles Highway, a road that many engineers deemed impossible to build. Two years and 150,000 pounds of dynamite later, the road was opened to automobiles.
Simply amazing!
I wonder what the purpose of this little "cave" is?
Some steep grades, lots of hairpin turns and blind corners- brilliant!
Approaching another tunnel with blind entrance. One has to remember that this is a two-way road!
You have to be pretty careful and sound your horn before entering a tunnel lest you meet someone else coming the other way-
More twists and turns-
Eventually we arrive at Sylvan Lake- it's mid-afternoon, pretty hot, Kristhawee decides that it's time for a swim!!
We swam out to the rock island you see in the picture above. (Remember our mission to re-teach Kristhawee how to swim?)
C'mon in! The water's FINE!
Oh my, underage babe alert
If admiring beautiful girls is a crime, let me be guilty!!
Kristhawee is.... um... doing laundry??
Oh, no, silly me, he's making a weapon!
Ok little dude- let's rumble!
Making friends on the beach- this family, if I recall correctly, was also from Minnesota-
Kristhawee is building a volcano! (Serious work- just look at his face)
We climbed up the rocks next to the beach and you get some nice views of Lake Sylvan- These would make a nice panorama if I could be arsed to stitch them together
Hike a little further on the rocks and you discover this amazing view that wasn't even visible from the beach-
Even more beautiful with my son in the picture
Father and Son at Sylvan Lake, Custer State Park, Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
Kristhawee's feet are getting tougher!
Having fun scrambling around on the rocks-
We swam some more then quite suddenly black clouds rolled in and we enjoyed a nice afternoon thunderstorm. There was lightening so we took cover. While we were taking shelter in a little gazebo-like structure in the parking lot a bunch of emergency vehicles showed up along with search and rescue types- apparently an older gentleman had been hiking to the top of Harney Peak (the tallest mountain east of the Rockies) and had collapsed...
It's not a very tough hike, but the pine beetle has killed off most of the trees which means the trail is now very exposed and it was a hot sunny day. Hopefully the gent was just suffering from heat exhaustion and nothing more serious.
We met a single father with two daughters and the younger one was around my son's age. They were getting along great and were kind of playing tag, ducking under the railings of the gazebo when the older daughter misjudged the clearance and ran head first into the concrete rail
She kind of knocked herself out and then came to and had a seizure- I caught her before she hit the ground and the seizure passed very quickly but it was pretty scary and her little sister totally lost it.
Fortunately there were already plenty of medical and emergency personnel on the scene. They checked the girl out and said she was probably ok but that dad ought to take her for an X-ray just to be sure. Yikes! It's scary how quickly good times can go bad. I always had that thought in the back of my head on this trip- the "what if" nightmare scenarios of crashing the bike with my son strapped to it. I consider myself a pretty experienced rider, chose one of the safest touring bikes on the planet and didn't take ANY chances but still, no matter how skilled you might be or how much you might prepare, you can never control EVERYTHING. You never know when a drunk driver might take you out (been there done that) a bison decides to use you as target practice, you blow a tire in a hairpin with no guardrail, etc etc. Yet on the flip side, LIFE is dangerous. There is RISK in everything we do. I feel like more and more people choose "safety" over common sense, to the point where many people live their lives in fear, obsessed with making everything "safe" and eliminating as much risk as they can and as a result don't really LIVE.
One of the things I really like about Thailand is that people are free to be just as stupid as they want to be. The government here doesn't try to legislate common sense. The result is a freakishly high road fatality rate, but also a really really FUN place to ride. Don't want to go too far off on a tangent, but I've been reading this other thread on Advrider called "When do you call it quits" (http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=819513) and many people there have voiced my feelings of concern and malaise better than I can. Suffice to say, the ride with my son was epic, perfect, couldn't have gone better, and for that I thank my lucky stars.
I hope we can do similar rides in the future and that some day, when he's old enough to ride his own bike that we'll ride and tour together. I'm certainly not ready to call it quits and I'm pretty sure my son feels the same way. But if his feelings change maybe we'll do it in a car next time, or rent an RV and bring the whole family along. Born and raised for his first four years in Thailand he grew up on 2 wheels and learned right away that he NEVER gets on a bike without a helmet, so he found it quite surprising and couldn't understand why SO FEW of the bikers we encountered this summer wore helmets.
I moved to Asia in the late 90's and this is the first big road trip I've done in the US in ~15 years. It seems to me that while I was gone a lot more motorcycles have taken to the roads and that a lot LESS people are wearing helmets... No doubt for the folks living in the US it's been a gradual change, but for me being away for 15 year the sudden and noticeable increase in bare headed bikers was quite striking. What happened?
We encountered these bikes at a gas station somewhere west of Sioux Falls, SD and neither wore helmets or had windscreens. The result was that one took a big bug/beetle in the face, high on the cheek, just below his fashionably small sunglasses at 75mph and now his eye was so swollen he couldn't see out of it anymore...
The folks in the parking lot were trying to help decide what to do. Most were telling him to go to the hospital, but the biker chose to continue on with one good eye, no helmet, no windscreen and the same little sunglasses...
All in the name of what? "Freedom"? Looking "cool"? Being "tough"? I just don't get it... I mean, I AM guilty of occasionally going for a spin without a helmet on, so I'm certainly not in a position to preach. It DOES feel good to cruise around a lake or down a main street with the wind in your hair and nothing over your ears, but cruising on an interstate at 75mph with no windscreen and no helmet is NOT my idea of a good time... And isn't it just WEIRD that 49 of our 50 States have deemed that splitting traffic on a motorcycle is so dangerous it's illegal, yet riding without a helmet is permitted in some ~19 States? What's up with that?! I just can't understand the logic or rational, if any behind that contradiction. Ok ok, sorry, really didn't mean to go on like that, but recounting the story of the little girl knocking herself out just brought it all to a head and it feels good to put pen to paper, so to speak, and try to make sense of it all.
On with the ride!!!
Roads were a bit wet so we took it nice and easy-
More tunnels and hairpins-
We were soon back in the sun and on our way to Deadwood!
What happened to the formatting in the post above? And why can't I edit / fix it?? Why does it say "HTML code is Off"?? Where did the advanced editor go?? :-?
It's getting late and it's been a long day. I originally was aiming for Spearfish but really don't like riding at dusk when it seems the deer are most active. Also, setting up camp in the dark is no fun- so we decide to hit Deadwood instead and ride the Spearfish Canyon in the morning when we're fresh and rested.
The ride to Lead and Deadwood was quite nice- fast road in good repair with little traffic, long sweeping turns and beautiful scenery along the way-
I've started to experiment with the camera and I'd like to think that some of the shots aren't half bad-
Both Deadwood and Lead are pretty cool old mining towns. Seems they are still mining in Lead, while Deadwood has been pretty much converted over to a full on tourist town.
Spotted a KOA on the road between Deadwood and Lead and stopped there for the night-
Remember how I said earlier that I thought KOA's were more aimed at the RV crowd? Well, this was one of those types. Not a very pleasant location or site, but the staff were friendly, it was late, we were tired, and at least they had nice clean bathrooms with hot showers, WiFi and much to my son's delight, a pool and hot tub-
I had spotted a funky looking Pizza joint just up the road in the direction of Lead so we decided to hit that for dinner-
That's MY beer, in case anyone is wondering
Awesome pizza but a large was way more than we could finish- yippee! Pizza for breakfast!
This place was called "Pizza Lab" and was half restaurant, half "disco"- they had a big dance floor and an actual DJ spinning the records- weird funny place. There was a big group of students from France there that evening and my son had a really good time dancing with them. I may have busted a move or two as well, but thank goodness there are no pictures of that nonsense!
Cheers!
I'm full of pizza and beer- Little guy gets ice cream for desert!
Made it back to our campsite quite late and we both passed out in a flash- yet another full day of fun, adventure and discovery!
We rolled over to Sturgis for breakfast and to check out the toys at Sturgis Motorsports-
Sturgis was really really quiet. Guess other than during the big rally not much goes on there?
Kristhawee has never been in a cave, and the Black Hills is full of them. Talked to a number of other travelers about which is best, and was advised that Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument are over run with tourists this time of year and sometimes there are so many people you can't even get in to the caves... Well, that doesn't sound like my idea of a good time
But a few people mentioned Wonderland Cave as a cool alternative that is a lot less crowded. Wonderland it is!
It's a short pleasant ride to Nemo and the final mile or so of road is dirt with steep grades and in really rough shape- not my idea of a good time on the big LT, but we made it!
You can only enter the cave with a guide, smart I guess since to this day they still don't know where the cave ends- it's that big! Our guide was a really cutie too, college student working at the cave over her summer holiday.
We grabbed a quick bite to eat before our tour started-
The entrance (not my pic)
Down we go- it was a pretty hot day, but nice and cool in the cave.
No crowds here- It was just us and one other couple! Krsthawee is diggin it!
They leave the lights on which has allowed ferns and moss to grow-
Formations found in Wonderland Cave include Stalactites, Stalagmites, Dogtooth Spar Crystals, Column Formations, Helictites, Lobulites, better known as Popcorn Crystal and frost Crystals. Calcite Lily Pads, Ribbon Stalactites, Boxwork Crystals, Flowstone and many more.
This is a "living" cave, which means that most of the formations are still growing. They call this the "Carrot Patch" :mrgreen:
Pretty hard to capture the colors with my simple point and shoot camera, but suffice to say, it was quite impressive!
Hands-on geology- touching flowstone
Some quite strange and rare formations-
Kristhawee in Wonderland Cave, Black Hills, South Dakota!
The Black Hills were fantastic but it was time to press on if we were going to meet our friends at Yellowstone National Park in a few days.
My son wanted to go for a swim before we left, so we got on the road rather late.
From our campground in Deadwood to the campground I was aiming for on Highway 16 in the Bighorn Mountains was only about 240 miles.
I figured even with our late departure that it would be a piece of cake.
Riding west from Deadwood and Lead we passed the "Presidents Park".
Then we hit the fantastic Spearfish Canyon Scenic Highway (US 14)
Lots of other bikes out and about-
This is the kind of road that really makes you want to crack the throttle. Have to be careful though- don't really want to get pulled over for speeding with my 5 year old son on the back...
Zoom zoom!
I'm trying to keep it close to the posted speed limit of 45 and there are a lot of sport bikes blasting past me in both directions, so I HOPED that any popo will go after the speeding crotch rockets and ignore the BMW Land Yacht
There's not much of a shoulder and in many places it's thick forest right up to the edge of the road, so I do worry a bit about deer and keep the brakes covered.
Amazing scenery-
The big K1200LT Land Yacht handles these fast sweepers with aplomb and I'm thinking to myself that this wouldn't have been nearly as much fun on a Goldwing... :happy3:
Would have been nice to stop and take a dip in the Spearfish River, but we'd left camp a bit late and needed to keep going if we were going to reach the Bighorn Mountains by a decent hour.
Wow, what a road!
Little interesting factoid- Spearfish Canyon is where they filmed the final scenes in the epic movie "Dances with Wolves".
Zoomin'
Got stuck briefly behind a tractor...
Dunno if the big land yacht made them nervous or something, but they kept hitting the brakes in the strangest places and almost wiped out on the gentlest of curves...
We reach the end of Spearfish Canyon all too soon, roll through the cute little town of Spearfish, and jump on the I90 Interstate headed West.
It's starting to get a bit warm- It's actually 11:49 am (I haven't adjusted the bike's clock for Mountain Time yet)
Fabulous story Tony, I would love to do such a tour with my grandson, but this would be too much responsibility. Also the material available in Asia and roads would probably make it even more hazardous.
Your son must have collected wonderful memories through such and exceptional adventure.
It's getting hotter and the wind is picking up... I didn't think a big heavy bike like a K1200LT would be affected so much by the wind, but we were getting blown all over the place and I had some white knuckle moments when passing or being passed by large trucks.
Finally, after about 40 or 50 miles of this crazy wind I decided to get off the interstate, so we took the 14/16 which will reconnect with the interstate in Buffalo, WY
It's still very hot-
There is nothing out here except coal mines (couldn't see the actual mines, but could see the huge clouds of black dust that the diggers and dump trucks kick up), gas and oil mines, and cattle-
Miles and miles of nothing-
I was thinking to myself that this would be a terrible place to break down or run into bad weather- we went for many miles without seeing another vehicle or inhabited building.
Looks like we might get wet...
We ride on and on and it's still hot and windy and I know that my little guy must need a break, though he's not complaining.
Finally I spot a little roadside watering hole, like an oasis in a desert-
The Spotted Horse! (As you can see, it's still very very windy!)
We duck inside and it's like a place lost in time- a couple of old timers at one table and what I guess to be a father and son at the bar.
Gotta love the signs above the bar- "Drink till she's cute" and "Life's too short to drink cheap beer" were a couple of my favorites
I ask the barkeep for a glass of water and she tells me, "We don't drink the water around here"...
What a strange and interesting place. Kristhawee took my camera and snapped these pictures-
Kristhawee even got a picture of me with The Duke himself! John Wayne!
Kristhawee and The Duke!
It was a good thing I'd topped off the gas back on the interstate because it was about 70 miles to the first little town (Clearmont) that had a gas station.
After we'd cooled off and chilled out for a while at the Spotted Horse we went back out into the wind and heat to press on to the mountains-
The Lake View campground on Meadowlark Lake in the Bighorn Mountain National Forest is exceptionally pristine and beautiful!
We found a great spot in a tent-only area right next to the lake. Kristhawee helped me set up the tent-
This was a really cool spot- we were actually on a little island- we had to cross a couple small streams to get to this spot, and if you look closely at the picture above you can see a steam just behind the tent.
We got the tent set up just in time too because a small thunderstorm rolled in quite suddenly. No worries- we'll just chill in the tent until the rain passes.
Father and son
My son came up with this funny game that he calls the "Bison game" where we push against each other and see who has the strongest head. Believe it or not he wins a lot!
The rain has stopped, it's getting late, and the temperature is dropping fast-
I have to say a BIG BIG THANK YOU to the campground hosts, Don and Barb-
We arrived quite a bit later than I'd planned and I didn't have much in the way of food.
When I went to register and pay for the camp spot I asked Don where would be the nearest place to buy some food and he gave me a funny look and said probably the closest place would be all the way down in Ten Sleep, 20 miles away...
Don's wife gave me a disapproving look and stated the obvious, "You don't have any food?!"
I was pretty beat and the idea of jumping back on the bike for a 40 mile grocery run did not sound like my idea of a good time, but gotta do what ya gotta do.
I went back to tell Kristhawee that we'd need to get back on the bike and we were just getting ready to go when Don came down in his truck with a big bag of food!
Wow! He told us that another family had had to leave unexpectedly when one of their kids crashed on a bicycle and that they'd given all their extra food to Don and Barb as they left.
Don and Barb were kind enough to pass it along to us.
Can't thank you enough for your kindness Don and Barb!!
I tell you, you meet the nicest people when you travel!
There was (and still is) a total fire ban in the Black Hills so we hadn't had a camp fire since our first night at Lake Vermillion. Don said it was no problem to have a fire here, so off we went to scavenge some wood. Seems my boy loves fire just as much as I do. I was a total pyro as a kid and I think my kid is a chip off the old block
We enjoyed hotdogs for dinner, courtesy of Don and Barb, and I had everything we needed to make smores for desert-
hi i have been trying to post a reply for a few days but i think due to the amount of photos and info i've been struggling!! anyhow!!
wow wow wow, what an amazing adventure!! what an incredibly brave and brilliant Dad are you Tony, total respect!!!! could keep writing and praising, so i won't, what memories and what a great little chap is he!!!!! big up to you both!!!!
One of the little streams we crossed to get to our campground- hard to see but it's full of small trout-
We woke up pretty early and went for a short morning hike part way around the lake-
When we arrived at this campground the day before my son had spotted a bunch of kids camping up on top of the hill overlooking the lake. They were super nice kids from nearby Cody, WY who were out with their dads for a long weekend of camping. Their spot:
The oldest, who couldn't have been much more than 7 or 8 years old followed us down to the tent-only area by the lake and even helped carry some of our gear to our campsite (it was a walk-in site). #17
The kids (along with one of the dads) invited Kristhawee to go on a short geochaching hike and they took really good care of him. It's rare to meet such polite, friendly, mature kids- my hat off to their parents who are obviously raising them right!
I'd heard of geocaching but didn't really know what it's all about- pretty darn cool! This is the Meadowlark Lake Geocache-
You might have noticed that Kristhawee has a collection of dinosaurs on this trip? Well, one of the little ones (a T-rex I believe) now resides in the Meadowlark Lake Cache. It's no little thing for a 5 year old to leave a toy, so if you do happen to see Kristhawee's dinosaur I'm sure he'd be really excited to see a picture.
We climbed up on a boulder and enjoyed the silence, solitude and beauty of Meadowlark Lake-
No rush today as it's only 80 miles to our next destination- Thermopolis, Wyoming!
Kristhawee said good bye to all of his new friends and I stopped to thank Don and Barb again for the food and we roll out of the Lake View camp heading west on US 16 towards Hot Springs County, WY.
Seems half the mountain came down- some serious roadworks and, much to Kristhawee's delight, some HUGE dump trucks.
It made me all the more grateful for the food that Don and Barb gave us yesterday- it would have been miserable and possibly dangerous to ride through these road works after dark and in the rain.
Lots of bikes coming up the mountain headed east-
Amazing views!
Most folks blow right by the Bighorn Mountains on their way to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. I'm really glad we spent a night here and realize that there is a lot to see and do in this National Forest. Bighorn National Forest consists of over 1.1 million acres. Created as a US Forest Reserve in 1897, it is one of the oldest government-protected forest lands in the U.S.
The Cloud Peak Skyway that we rode yesterday took us past the Cloud Peak Wilderness and is worthy of further mention (from http://www.fs.usda.gov/bighorn):
Cloud Peak Wilderness
On September 3, 1964, the United States did something that no other nation had ever done before. They created "The Wilderness Act".
The Act states :"In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States... leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness." Introduction
The United States Congress designated the Cloud Peak Wilderness in 1984 with the Wyoming Wilderness Act and it now has a total of 189,039 acres. All of the wilderness is in the state of Wyoming. About the Cloud Peak Wilderness
Long recognized as having some of the most majestic alpine scenery in America, this region was managed as the Cloud Peak Primitive Area as far back as 1932. For 27 miles along the spine of the Bighorn Mountain Range, Cloud Peak Wilderness preserves many sharp summits and towering sheer rock faces standing above glacier-carved U-shaped valleys. Named for the tallest mountain in Bighorn National Forest--Cloud Peak at 13,167 feet--the Wilderness is blanketed in snow for a large part of the year. Most of the higher ground doesn't show bare ground until July. On the east side of Cloud Peak itself, a deeply inset cirque holds the last remaining glacier in this range. Several hundred beautiful lakes cover the landscape and drain into miles of streams. The forest is an attractive mix of pine and spruce opened by meadows and wetlands.
Riding west on US 16-
Amazing road, incredible views!
I had no idea the Bighorn Mountains are this cool!
Held up by another tractor
To all you HD fellas, I'm just teasin'. I think a big Harley tour bike would be a fantastic way to tour the country at a leisurely pace. Every Harley rider we met was nicer than nice and no one ever gave us any shit about our pretentious German Land Yacht.
Some day when I'm older and grayer I'd like to try touring on a Hog
Out of the mountains and in to the desert-
Getting hot again, but thankfully we don't have far to go.
Thermopolis is Greek for "Hot City" but we were headed some place nice and cool- Our first stop in Thermopolis was the Wyoming Dinosaur Center!
In case you hadn't noticed, my son loves dinosaurs- he was in for a treat!
He can tell you the name of just about every dinosaur in the place. Here's Dimetrodon-
The Dinosaur Family Tree- I was just as fascinated by this as he was-
Tuojiangosaurus, a close relative of Stegosaurus, which has always been one of my personal favorites-
Some huge and fierce looking aquatic dinosaurs-
Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to sneak up on a Triceratops-
Momma Parasaurolophus with her babies-
Kristhawee took my camera and photographed pretty much every dinosaur in the place
We hammed it up a bit too
Eeek! Allosaurus is gonna get me!
Once again I'm pretty impressed at how steady my son's hands are- he really understands the whole "squeeze" the shutter button concept.
One of the dinosaurs for which the Wyoming Dinosaur Center is most famous is the Supersaurus nicknamed "Jimbo"
Jimbo is the most complete Supersaurus in the world. But he's so damn big that it's pretty much impossible to take a picture of him! He stretches from one end of the building to the other!
The Wyoming Dinosaur Center was a big hit with Kristhawee and I really enjoyed it too!
How does one top a visit to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center? With an afternoon at Thermopolis' Star Plunge Hot Springs Water Park of course!
He can't swim remember. No way he'll jump!
Yo Kristhawee- you can't swim, remember??
That's pretty high little dude- aren't you scared?!
Apparently not!
Vid-
Man this kid is fearless! He must have jumped off that high dive 20 or 30 times over the course of the afternoon, and of course I had to fish him out every time. I was flippin exhausted and he just wanted more!
I was a bit surprised that the lifeguards were cool with having a kid who obviously can't swim jump off the high dive...
The high dive wasn't the only attraction at the Thermopolis Star Plunge Hot Springs Park
Plenty of water slides! Little ones-
Big ones-
Hot spring pools of various temperature and depth
Hot springs on your head
(photo by Kristhawee)
The Vapor Cave
Inside the vapor cave, hot and stinky!
Back to the high dive- my kid is just like the energizer bunny- he keeps going and going and going!
Banzai!!!
I need a nap!!! Kristhawee is doing laps on the little slide just to my right, where I can keep an eye on him-
I find a beach chair and am planning to chill for a bit-
No sooner have a sat down to CHILL, we have a bit of a disaster...
My son has been doing laps on the small water slide that drops into the out door pool and somehow has managed to tear off half of his big toe nail
Good god it looked painful and he was in a LOT of pain! His big toe nail on his left foot was torn right up the middle and one half was GONE
As the pain really kicked in my poor son was SCREAMING and I felt terrible that there was nothing I could do to take away his pain. They had a pretty decent first aid kit and we cleaned up his mangled toe and made sure there wasn't any paint under what was left of his toenail. It looked like a clean wound- they had some numbing / anti-bacterial spray and bandaged him up as best they could, but he was still in a lot of pain.
The shocker was when the staff mentioned that this happens a lot
They said that the hot water breaks down the paint in the slides and causes it to crack and that kids get toe nails and finger nails caught in these cracks. What the hell?! They know there's a problem but they don't actually do anything about it?!
I'm not the litigating type, but seems to me this place is just asking to be sued... What a terribly way to end such a fun day...
It took a while but finally my son settled down, but he was still pretty rattled and I'm sure his toe still hurt from where the nail was torn off
I got him some ice cream- that always helps
Then I asked him what he wanted to do- go back to the motel and chill, or ride on my back and go see the famous "Swinging Bridge".
He said we wanted to see the bridge. Good on ya Kristhawee- most kids would have called it a day; you are a seriously tough 5 year old!
It's a nice little hike through hot spring rainbow terraces to the bridge-
The Thermopolis Swinging Bridge-
A bit of history-
It does swing a bit, but it's a pretty solid bridge-
Kristhawee must have been feeling better because he got down off my back and started walking on his own-
Views from the Swinging Bridge-
We walked around the park-
Really cool Bison "sculpture" in the playground-
Kristhawee took a picture of me on the Bison; he wasn't keen to climb up with his injured foot.
Another full day! After the Star Plunge, Swinging Bridge and Rainbow Terraces it was time to find some dinner.
First I picked up some first aid supplies for Kristhawee's foot. I worried about infection and hoped that as long as we kept it clean he would be ok. I also wasn't sure if he'd be able to get his hiking boots on the next day...
We hit a burger / ice cream shack for dinner-
It was yet another LONG day, full of excitement, discovery and a bit of drama too! Kristhawee looks exhausted, as well he should-
Back to our motel, cleaned up and dressed his injured foot, and he got to watch some cartoons on TV but was soon sound asleep.
Looking at all the added fotos left me speechless. I have never seen such a comprehensive report on any forum !! The amount of fotos and the comments have me wonder as on how you can remember every detail of this trip so clearly ? This report deserves to be called "The Mega Report on GT-Rider Forum" 55555. Cheers, Franz
Franz;282434 wrote: Looking at all the added fotos left me speechless. I have never seen such a comprehensive report on any forum !! The amount of fotos and the comments have me wonder as on how you can remember every detail of this trip so clearly ? This report deserves to be called "The Mega Report on GT-Rider Forum" 55555. Cheers, Franz
Cheers Franz! Well, I tried to keep a little journal which I'd update as time permitted, jotting down little details and whatnot that I'm sure I would otherwise forget. I'm trying to bang out this trip report as quickly as I can lest I forget some details, but I'm realizing that at the rate I'm going it's going to take me just as long to finish this story as it did to do the ride!
My plan, once it's finished, is to clean it up and publish it in a book for my son. Thanks to you and everyone else for your kind comments!
After a week of camping it was nice to sleep in a big comfy bed
We stayed at the Hot Springs Inn which is a cheap no frills motel in the center of Thermopolis. It's got really mixed reviews and for just $59.99 + tax (Thank you Priceline!) I wasn't expecting too much, but seems it's under new management and the staff were super friendly, fridge in the room, WiFi and we got one of the newer remodeled rooms which was small but quite clean. Here's what our room looked like (not my pics):
We rolled in there on Sunday July 15th and it was really quiet. (In fact all of Thermopolis seemed really quiet; isn't this supposed to be the high season?)
The staff (who I initially thought were customers) were just sort of lounging about in the shade, and they nicknamed my son "Teddybear" because when we rolled in they didn't think he was an actual kid but rather some kind of toy or doll strapped to the back of my bike. They were apparently really surprised when I took him off the bike and he turned out to be an actual living breathing kid
We watched in amazement as a herd of deer wandered down Broadway, nibbling at trees and shrubs along the way. At least they stayed on the sidewalk and out of the street
My camera was charging so regrettably no pics.
We enjoyed breakfast in bed - I'd picked up some blueberries and other goodies at a local store the evening before and had also hit a laundromat as we were pretty much out of clean clothes. It was nice to be able to re-pack and re-organize in an air conditioned room. I realized we had slightly overpacked so took this opportunity to get rid of an old shirt of mine and a pair of shorts that were really too big for Kristhawee. It was around this time I decided I wouldn't shave till the end of the trip, so adios razor. I had the K1200LT Land Yacht packed to the gills so any little thing I could get rid of I did.
I inspected my son's injured toe and it still looked very painful, but not terribly swollen. I'm no doctor, but the wound still looked clean so I applied more numbing / anti-bacterial spray and let my son pick out his favorite bandaids (I'd picked up Muppet and Cars bandaids, which he thought was pretty cool)
I'd also bought some children's advil to try and dull the pain a bit, so after getting his toe bandaged up I found the thinnest pair of socks he had and loosened up his little hiking boots as much as I could. He gritted his teeth and managed to get his boot on over the injured toe. He was quite apprehensive about his injury but his boot offered good protection and soon enough he was walking around like he'd never been hurt.
I was still worried about infection, but did my best to keep his toe clean and kept my fingers crossed that he would heal up quickly. Anyway, there would be no hiking today!
The plan today was to ride to Red Lodge, Montana, and then over the Beartooth All American Highway to Yellowstone National Park.
We stopped in Cody for lunch and Kristhawee blew off some steam in the hamster cage
It was about this time that I noticed his face was starting to peel. Weird, since he'd been wearing SPF 50 sunscreen whenever he was on the bike and we'd been riding mostly mornings with the sun to out backs... It's finally occurred to me, as I write this trip report, that on the day of his accident he never showered after spending the whole afternoon in the hotsprings. I'm guessing perhaps the sulfur and other minerals in the water may have reacted somehow with his sunscreen giving him, in effect, what looks like a chemical peel.
Seems I must have made a wrong turn in Cody, because shortly after leaving the town we rode past this sign-
Oops... we're on the 20 west instead of the 120 north. Oh well, I ask Kristhawee what he thinks about going to Yellowstone instead of Red Lodge- he's cool with that
Stunning scenery and a fantastic road as we ride through Buffalo Bill State Park on US20-
Some cool tunnels too!
And more tunnels!
Riding past the Buffalo Bill Reservoir-
I think I see some snow off in the distance!
Beautiful country- my camera does not do this place justice-
The colors and erosion in the sandstone foothills here reminds me of the Badlands-
Little spots of snow in the mountains. It sure would be fun to follow some of these dirt roads into the hills on a proper bike.
Anyone have any idea what this odd structure is on the hill above the Green Creek Inn in Wapiti, WY?
Looked like something out of a scifi movie set- I'm totally clueless as to what it might be, but very curious to know-
The road gets twistier the closer we get to Yellowstone-
I'm not bummed at all that we missed the road to Red Lodge- The Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Highway was called "the most scenic 50 miles in the world" by President Teddy Roosevelt.
Interesting and varied geology-
It was in the 90's. Some scattered rain felt nice and helped cool us down-
The highway follows a river up the Wapiti Valley-
US West 14/16/20
Getting closer!
More trees and cooler as we climb in elevation-
Approaching the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park!
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
