Home

We got home on Thursday at around 5:40 PM. Not too bad considering our later than normal start. I had to let Joel sleep a little bit. It's good to be home. Some interesting facts:

591 pictures taken
14,100 Highest elevation reached.
28 miles biked
8500 highest elevation reached by bike.
2853 Total miles total driven
95 gallons of gas at an average price of $4.04
0 concerts attended (yea, I'm still bitter)
7 different states drove through
41 Different state licences seen
523 Different songs played off the iPod

I will be picking through the pictures and attaching tracks to them in the next few days for hopefully some interesting looks into our trip.

Final Day

We got into Sioux Falls and the hotel around 11:50 PM Wednesday night. Made for a long day. Tomorrow is more of the same

Storm

You know I have not said too much about the weather on this trip. For the most part it is beautiful. Sunny every day high temps are a bit high (95 on Wednesday) but really great overall. Until we began our final leg of the trip. Leaving the Badlands and getting to Sioux Falls for the night. We drove into some of the darkest clouds I have seen. When we did catch up to it, the rain was intense, the hail sounded like it was going to come through the glass and the winds were buffeting the car. Many people pulled over on I-90 to wait it out. Bahhh. This picture is as we drive into it....

Badlands ohh and Wall Drug

After our lengthy bike ride in Custer state park, we kept trekking east for home. Not without a drive through the Badlands National Park. I almost forgot our quick stop in Wall Drug (Drug store in Wall, SD made famous for free ice water to travelers all the way back to the 30's)



Its now nothing more than a cafe and small western mall for tourists. Never the less it required a stop. The 2 billboards per mile on the way to Wall, announcing it's greatness would have you to believe it is the end all.








The Badlands on the other hand is quite spectacular. Hard to describe this formation that seems to materialize out of know where. Gorgeous and eerie at the same time.

Biking Adventures

Let me tell you, Custer State Park is a big park. We chose this 15 mile loop. All the other trails were out an back.

The Good: The weather was nice, not tooo hot sometimes overcast.

The Bad: Many elevation changes

The Ugly: The awful trail markings. (15 mile trip went longer and not even on the trail as mapped)

Some spectacular scenery, lots of climbs (and descents) and the trail markings for this loop were horrendous. You know you're in trouble when three people who work at the park, tell you "hmm, I think you go this way and this is the first time we were asked this" Well do you think you should look at your own maps that indicate these trails exist?

Anyway, based on the GPS track we did not follow the trail as it was marked, er drawn on a map. Lord knows we tried, got 2 miles into the 'right trail' only to have it dead end into a large pile of cut trees. We back track and continue. Nearing the end of our ride, which is getting very long, I took me helmet off to cool off. Joel goes on without me and I have to waste more time to find the helmet clip that just fell off. (never found it). I look up an Joel is coming back up towards me.

"We have to go another way".

I asked "Buffalo?"
"yep", he replies.

"How many?"

"One, large one"

"In our way or off the side?"

"Basically on the trail"

"Oh."

Not giving up so late in the game,we picked up our bikes hiked them up and around the Bison, through some woods. All good.

Action Packed

Today is full of activities.

We picked the 15+ mile loop to ride in Custer State Park.
We then go to the Badlands National Park.
Finally a 300 mile drive to Sioux City.

Mt Rushmore

Did the 400+ miles in about 6 hours. Very cool change of scenery, WY has lots of mesas and SD has the Black Hills.

Off to Mt Rushmore. Last time I was here was 1990. 18 years later I can say that they have improved the facilities quite a bit. The mountain hasn't changed :P

We then went to Crazy Horse. Last time there was also 1990. They are celebrating the 60th year anniversary of the place this year. The face is done. Still a looong way to go.

A nice ride through the Black Hills on the way home.

A ton more pictures to upload and go through when we get back.

Tomorrow is a full day, Custer State park for some more biking, then the Badlands park and then Wall Drug. Yea, Wall drug, can't wait.

Leaving CO

Colorado is a great place. You know how some little things just set your day off on a good note? Had that perfect cup of coffee and croissant for breakfast. Thats all it took. 400 Miles to Rapid City.

Oh yea, Joel and I saw HellBoy II. Nice large screen cinema in a bayshore like mall in Denver. Not a lot of thinking for that movie, just fun.

DISAPPOINTMENT!

Just had dinner at that famous Irish Mexican place - Jose O'Shea's. Look at the Red Rocks site to see when the gates open and to my surprise - the Foo Fighters have postponed to September 8th! From the site.

"In keeping with Dave Grohl's doctor's orders, Foo Fighters have rescheduled their two sold out shows at Morrison CO's Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Originally scheduled for July 14 & 15, the concerts have been rescheduled for September 8 & 9. Tickets for the July 14th show will be honored for the September 8th date, and tickets for the July 15th show will be honored for September 9th. Show times will remain the same. Refunds for each show will be available at the original point of purchase until the new respective dates.Grohl said, "As much as it kills us to postpone shows, I'm in no shape to deliver the kind of balls-out performances that you guys deserve. We're already looking forward to September when we can make it up to everyone ten times over. It's gonna be great."

Yea, great, Dave, if you can make it back here on the 8th. This entire trip was built around this show. The reason to go. Thats what I get for not getting tickets for the Chicago shows. What a cruel joke this is, they are coming to Harley Fest after I buy the Red Rocks tickets.

This sucks ass...

Trail Riding (walking)

Just cleaned up from the excellent mountain bike ride. It kicked our butts. We did the easy 'Hidden Fawn' Loop and said hey lets try something different. More to come on that.

Honestly, 3 minutes into this ride, Joel hits a little valley thingy and then came out and hit a medium sized rock. He starts going off trail puts the bike BETWEEN 2 larger rocks and then flips, er more like dives over the handle bars. The picture shows a bit of dirt on his shoulder. Miraculously, he gets up laughing. I let out a sigh and then laughed because it was comical. "I'm good, lets go!" 2 minutes later I have to stop, can't get out of my pedals and bam, I am down. If you ain't bleedin' you ain't bikin'!

The trails are incredible, rocks, ruts, flat runs, sand, stumps, roots and man-made erosion control. We decided to get to the top of evergreen mountain. Well I decided. We started out strong, but switcback after switchback at 8000 FT is just too much work and not enough O2 for these farm boys. Joel also found out that energy gel packs are next to eating vomit. We basically walked up to the top - with some spots of riding.

It was incredible though, the views, the smell of pine, and watching everyone else ride by us.

We did about 8.3 miles in around 3+ hours, averaging a whopping 5 MPH.

It's beautiful at the top, I hit 35 MPH on the way down, Joel was not too sure but did great. 1 1/2 hours up, 15 minutes down. That was an incredible decent. It they had a chair lift I would pay to go down it again.

I will have the GPS trail out soon so you can see where we went..

Time to find some dinner!

Monday

Whoo Hoo - I just uploaded yesterdays pictures to Turksville. Not Picasa. Just did that for archival purposes.

Go see them: Check teh links on the side of the blog for the new location of the entire trip!

Get some breakfast and off to the bike trails!

Sunday

Wow, I must have been tired. I slept to 7:00 in a hotel bed and did not get drunk the night before. That is a record.

Easy going breakfast, and into Colorado Springs for an all out assault on Pike's Peak....by car..

That was a trip, going up 14,100 feet on a twisty steep ass road. Very Cool. I will add pictures to this blog once I get a more robust connection. The Hampton Inn seems to have me throttled.

You know what the oxygen is like that high? Fun, after walking around the top for a while we both felt woozy and head achy. Joel took some 190+ pictures on that ride, we will have to pare them back :P

Came back home, thought about swimming, but the pool was packed. Went to dinner at Breckenridge Brewery (a brewpub, imagine that). Scored a glass. The real cool thing is, it's kiddy-corner from Coors Field.

Back to the room to hit the hay. Tomorrow we hit the trails (at 8,000 ft) and then the concert. We are both pretty excited about tomorrow.

Saturday

Well we made it. 829 or so miles in under 13 hours. West Bend (7:20 AM) to North Platte NE (8:10 PM).

First, the bikes really caused a drop in gas mileage, way more than I expected. Averaging about 28 MPG, bummer.

Anyway it was an uneventful drive through IL and IA, with a little rain here and there. Once in NE (yes I will be abbreviating these states) it got sunny and hot. Joel was a trooper, non stop (just gas) all the way through. We averaged 66 MPH, aided by he fact most of NE is 75 mph speed limit.

We hit Whiskey Creek BBQ for ribs and fajitas. Waitress was a goofball but nice. Tomorrow takes us to Denver.

One more thing - as I get the photo thing sorted out I will post or link to them.

-Jeff

Test of the emergency blogcast system

Test of the nw travelblog...for Joel and my trip.

Pictures, Stats and other stuff will be started here

Look to go live 7/12/2008!!!