Posted by Hogryder on June 20, 2000 at 06:30:03:
In Reply to: So when is the Rally at Sturgis? posted by Linnette on June 16, 2000 at 22:45:28:
If you like back roads, take highway 89 along the Utah-Wyoming and Idaho-Wyoming borders up to Alpine, WY then over into Jackson Hole. If you want a bigger detour, the trip north out of Vernal, Utah through the Flaming Gorge to Green River, WY is nice.
I assume you're going to go through Teton Park and Yellowstone as long as you're in the area. If you go out the North East entrance of Yellowstone through Red Lodge, MT you will see some great country, the Beartooth Mountains. You can see the Little Bighorn Battlefield if you're into that kind of thing, just looks like grass to me. They do have a good little museum. Cody, Wy is an interesting little town, just outside the East entrance of Yellowstone. The routes through the Bighorn Mountains into either Sheridan or Buffalo, WY are both great. I got caught in a snowstorm on Powder River Pass above Buffalo on my way to the Sturgis Rally in August 1989. Six inches of wet heavy snow fell in about 30 minutes and the road melted clear in an hour.
Central Wyoming has nothing to attract visitors, I'm afraid. The only attraction is Devil's Tower which is in western WY. If you take I-90 through Wyoming, take a short detour and see the tower. That's where the aliens landed in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Or was that "Third Encounters of the Close Kind"? Sounds like more fun.
If you make it to South Dakota, I recommend you take the drive from Deadwood south on highway 385 to Hot Springs. Great country. I also recommend the Museum of Woodcarvering in Custer, SD. The motorcycle museum in Sturgis is nice, even though they don't have a Savage. You will probably see advertising for the "Journey" museum in Rapid City. Don't waste your time there. It's long on political correctness and short on historical accuracy. Even the local Lakota Sioux laugh at the "exhibits" they have.
Custer State Park and the Badlands are also good attractions. Study in contrasts. Custer is green and full of life, and the Badlands are as dead as you can get. One of the end-of-the-world-by-comet/asteroid movies (the one where Bruce Willis saves the world by drilling a hole in the comet) was filmed in the Badlands.
Best advice I can give is don't try to see too much too fast. You'll enjoy it more if you take your time and just see a few things than if you try to hurry through and see everything. If you only have a week, I would say enjoy the Tetons and Yellowstone and save the Black Hills for another trip. This is the middle of the tourist season so make as many reservations as you can in advance so you don't have to run around looking for a room every night but don't be afraid to cancel reservations and change your plans at the last minute if you want to spend more time somewhere. The idea is to have fun, not cover a lot of territory.
Also, smack you hubby on the head with the muffler from a 1938 Harley until he grows some brains and buys another Savage so you can take bike trips together. There is no better way to see the sights.
Have fun on your trip even if you're trapped in a cage the whole time.