Day Thirteen

Today we rode to Mitchell as planned making stops at Deadwood and Sturgis. The weather was much better today. Early morning blue cloudless skies gave way to white fluffy clouds as the day progressed. The temp was cool in the morning and much warmer during the day. The high was about 70...still very cool for riding and oddly cool for the end of July. We ended up riding until after dark (11:00 pm) and by the time we pulled into the parking lot at the hotel we were frozen.

Deadwood was really neat. Deadwood is a town built in the late 1800's. It was the place to to for saloons, gambling and prostitution in its day. It is most famous as the place where Wild Bill Hickock was shot and killed while playing poker in the No.10 Saloon. He was holding a pair of 8's (clubs and spades) and aces (clubs and spades) and a 9 of diamonds. This has forever since been known as "dead man's hand". We explored the town and gift shops and had lunch at the Deadwood Social Club (a former brothel) above the No.10 Saloon.

From Deadwood we rode up to Sturgis. Sturgis is the site of the largest bike ralley in the country. Hundreds of thousands of bikes will descend on the city next week. The actual event starts on Aug 3, but there were already thousands of bikes in town and several hundred vendors were already present. We just rode around town a little and then hit the highway for Mitchell, which was another six hours away,

All total we rode about 520 miles today, putting us over 4000 for the trip so far. At this point we are basically retracing our path. Tomorrow we should ride from here to somewhere around Kansas City, MO



















Deadwood

Streets of Deadwood

Sturgis hillside

On the street in Sturgis

Days end (in our rearview mirror)