2016 Motorcycle Adventure (DAY Five)

This morning I had a little personal business to take care of so I headed over to the KOA camp office to borrow their land line. The fraud department of my credit card company had noticed some suspicious activity on my card and I was getting my credit denied by gas stations and such which was a huge pain in the butt when you're not carrying a lot of cash. I had notified them a week ago that I would be traveling down to LA, Portland etc. but they must have presumed that I was flying and couldn't understand the charges in Minnesota. It took about a half hour but eventually they added a note to my file explaining my trip details and I have had no further issues so far.
The weather was cooler but quite pleasant with a lot of high cloud cover. One of those days you mistakenly think you don't need sunscreen. My destination today was Rapid City, South Dakota, about a 450 mile ride. This is the central city to what they call the Badlands which provides easy access to many historical attractions on my "bucket list" such as Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Deadwood, Sturgis and Custer's Last Stand.
The route is one very long, very flat and very straight section of Interstate 90 so I saw lots of these: HIGHWAY BILLBOARDS

and some of these: COWS

and these: GIANT TATOR TOTS

and tons of these: VERY LONG STRAIGHT ROADS

and I made amazingly good time because of these: 80 MPH SPEED LIMIT

I actually took the bike up to 95 mph at one point just to see how it would handle. This bike totally rocks because it was so smooth and the trailer runs straight as an arrow.

For over 200 miles I saw literally dozens, maybe 50 billboards all promoting the nationally renowned tourist destination.......Wall Drug, so naturally I had to check it out. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.

The small town drugstore made its first step towards fame when it was purchased by Ted Hustead in 1931. Hustead was a Nebraska native and pharmacist who was looking for a small town with a Catholic church in which to establish his business. He bought Wall Drug, located in a 231-person town in what he referred to as "the middle of nowhere," and strove to make a living. Business was very slow until his wife, Dorothy, thought of advertising free ice water to parched travelers heading to the newly opened Mount Rushmore monument 60 miles (97 km) to the west. From that time on business was brisk. 

After my Wall Drug Store visit I gassed up and jumped back on the slab. I hadn't gone very far when I saw this in the distance.

As I rode closer and closer it got bigger and bigger. I still hadn't fully recovered from the "storm from hell" only two days ago so I stopped and donned my rain gear for the journey into the eye of the fury. I really had hoped that somehow either the road would suddenly curve off the the left or maybe the storm would pass off to the north but no such luck. As I felt the first few drops on my face shield I was braced for the worst yet again. In the end however it never really rained too hard and I reached my freeway exit in Rapid City, SD, found a McDonald's right off the highway and sat out the weakened storm with some large fries to keep me company. 

I had stopped mainly to get wifi access because I wanted to check messages and try to reach Bill Rusher, a former Honda dealer from Albuquerque, New Mexico who was traveling the Black Hills area with his wife in their motorhome. I hadn't seen them for at least 16 years and we were good friends back in the day. I was successful in reaching him and we plan to get together for dinner tomorrow evening in Deadwood.

I found a nice little KOA campground just south of Rapid City and I plan on being here till Sunday so I can get around to all the great attractions in the area. 

Just a note. If you click on a photo you can view it in a larger format.