Friday 13th - No such thing as bad luck!

Words and photos by James Kingstone

After the storm of yesterday the glorious sunshine on the Missouri River, nestled deep below the green hills, was a beautiful sight to behold. But that wind was still angry. Very angry. We were headed for Rapid City and I set a rather 'brisk' pace for about 75 miles. Garrett had suggested we tank up as we left but with a good 100 miles of fuel left in my tank I said let's tank later. Garrett came past and signalled a stop. He was dry. I couldn't believe it. It was only 1 mile to the next petrol station so I belted off and after tanking up I ran back with a coke bottle full for him. The wind was so violent it blew that 93 octane straight in my eyes. Nice. Ever seen a grown man in full leathers dancing around yanking paper from a dispenser and turning the air blue? riding the wrong way up an Interstate on the hard shoulder added to the sense of adventure. Hello officer...We stopped for a coffee and analysed the consumption. With a smaller engine, a bigger bloke on board with more luggage and what we reckoned were 40mph headwinds it was no wonder Garrett ran dry. Also, his Kawasaki only has a fuel warning light, tough to spot in sunlight, whereas my Yamaha has a warning light plus electronic mileage countdown. Garrett was getting 31mpg and I was down to 37mpg from my usual 45-50mpg. Lesson learned and trip meters set we accepted a suggestion from a local and took Hwy 16 parallel to the Interstate and enjoyed a more relaxed pace to Kadoka. En route we saw an abandoned old farmhouse and took photos. It seemed to summarize the wide open space here in South Dakota. We refuelled both bikes and bodies at Kadoka with a good breakfast and set off to see the badlands via Hwy 44. From now on we would avoid the Interstates as often as possible and just as I had originally planned.

This road is worth riding. The wind had abated and the intense blue skies, green grass and white stones were stunning. I had no idea I would love this State so much. The corny phrases "wide open spaces" and "big sky" take on all the meaning the original writers meant to convey. We made a brief stop in Scenic (not very well named as the photos show) seeking fuel but there wasn't any so we finished off about 8pm in Rapid City for fuel and a crummy motel. End of day I was scenery saturated. South Dakota is a must see for scenery fans. And the best was yet to come.

I need to confess though that the farther west one goes the more one sees scant regard for man's intrusion on nature. This must be a byproduct of the rush for shelter that the early pioneers were forced to adopt in such a beautiful but harsh land. Still, there is little excuse to continue this in the 20th and 21st centuries and the 50's through 80's were far worse than the 1850's because the materials used were not from the land but were artificial, plastic and aluminium, land-fill garbage that blight man's existence more than it eases it. Optical pollution from quick-buck junkies rules the landscape and breaks the heart. Rapid City in the Black Hills struck me this way. I nicknamed it Rabid City. It seems to be a collection of scruffy hilltop segments that collide in a valley full of neon signs and fast-built, flat-roofed, cinder-block convenience satisfyers. Necessary? For sure. So ugly? Not acceptable. But by now no one knows what good taste or beauty or balance is. And no one cares. Pity. Truly a pity. No wonder the history is gone, replaced with Tourist stops done in cinder block or raw cement and big billboards with tacky pictures of Buffalo Bill or some country and western radio station shoved in your face until you don't even see them any more. Log cabins moved to non-historic locations and loaded up with myths seem perfectly acceptable to the masses who's main concern is the next 2 gallon slushie drink to sip in their massive RV. Maybe it was inevitable and is no more than a modern version of a gold-rush mining town.

So we rode into the first motel we saw and set up camp, grab a subway sandwich and catch the news on telly. I was awake all night with intense back pain and couldn't decide if it was muscular or a kidney infection. I nearly went insane with pain and Garrett helped me out with pain killers but only aspirin works on me so I just tossed all night. Garrett too had it rough as his newly pulled tooth was killing him and a helmet pushed by 70mph headwinds really added the finishing touches. He made me laugh when he said "to me a Pharmacy looks like an all-you-can-eat-buffet". He took so many tablets to tough it out he rattled when he walked by. Friday the 13th? Pah!