Badlands, Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore update...

This will be a quick blog, a couple of pics...above is sunset-ish time at Badlands, SD...

I thought I'd consolidate a bit. Here are a few more pics of Badlands. As you can see, the terrain is otherworldly; it feels like you are on the moon...someplaces are that inhospitable looking. Didn't help it was 100 deg F. And there is NO shade, none when the sun is straight up at noon. I drank a bunch of water each day and was still getting headaches from dehydration.

The pic on the left is my Garmin feed from a short hike. Even this overhead looks like the moon-- when you get down on to the ground itself, it really is challenging terrain if you get off the trails. The one on the right...this is in Hill City, SD-- the Black Hills...quite a bit more green.

Take note of my route depicted on the map on the right. Some habits die hard. What do I mean, you ask? For those of you who have read my novel Rosehips in June, you may recognize the pattern:

"Observe this surveillance detection route we just ran from the Hilton.  We’d go maybe north, take a right going east, a left north again, another right east and so forth.  We call that a stair step..." 

Go ahead, zoom in on it. Give it a good, hard look. This is how you learn, grasshopper.

Back to the Black Hills region, this time by bike. Pic on the left is of course a ride in Badlands. Pic on the right is a trail right outside the Palmers Gulch KOA RV site. Before I forget-- great (!!) RV campsite-- biggest one I've been to, and with perfect striking distance to Mt. Rushmore.

Pic on the right I was on mostly a dirt road which lead to a paved road. On the downhill ride, I hit 28 mph-- on a fat bike with a loaded left pannier (unbalanced as hell), that felt pretty fast. The two, tines of a fork exursions were on a very, very bumpy trail. Again, the unbalance weight distribution did not help, so the off-road portions were pretty sparse.

All in all, my SD side track enroute to Whistler was fantastic. I had elk medalions at a restaurant in HillCity called 1885-- tasty as hell and they made a kick-ass old fashioned, too. The cheesecake? JHC, that was good. South Dakota is a must see if you get out on the road!