Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road Drive

With high winds in the forecast we opted for more scenic drives through Custer State Park. Today it was Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Road. We traveled through small tunnels, one lane roads, and saw majestic landscapes. We shared the road with a car club whose members were driving fancy (expensive) race cars. We were glad to see the tails of them! Too much hardware to be around!

Check out these photos to see how breath-taking the scenery was!

Lots of wind damage all over the area. Trees broken in the first 4-6 feet of their trunk. So sad. 

Custer to Pringle

 We loaded our two bikes into the back of Kim & Barb’s truck, they loaded their bikes on the bike rack. And we were off and away with Tam & Deb with their two bikes. The goal was to ride from Custer to Pringle. The drive to Custer was easy, and the unloading went fine.

We started the ride, only to discover that my bike kept skipping gears, making the riding too unpredictable. Paula diagnosed a frayed shifter cable that was missing its barrel nut for adjustments. So, I returned to the cars to borrow Kim & Barb’s truck so I could go find a bike shop. 

Custer and Hill City didn’t have bike shops large enough for me to want to give them a try. The cabling on the Trek Marlin + 8 goes through the frame, so I really wanted a Trek dealer. Closest one was Rapid City. So after checking Hill City, I was off to Rapid City. Amazingly the mechanics at Scheels took my sob story and offer to buy them lunch in order to look at my bike out of sequence. In less than a 1/2 hour they had it completed. Whew! New cable and barrel nut adjuster in place. Back to Custer I drove. 

Even though I got stopped for the repaving project through Custer State Park, I got back as the gals had completed their ride from Custer to Pringle and back, and were enjoying treats at the Bearded Buffalo. Here are everyone’s photos from the day…

Move from Hill City to Custer

 We all moved our rigs from Hill City to Custer State Park yesterday. It was only a short distance, but we wanted to do it to access parts of the Michelson Trail further south. Our site had power, but no water or dump. It’s an old campground, but spacious and beautiful.

Unfortunately the site for Kim and Barb was too crowned on a hillside to have it provide a safe entry/exit for them. With no other sites available nearby, we all decided to return to Hill City after one night, as we really liked our previous campground.

So the cool day became a roadtrip around the various drives of Custer State Park. Here are some photos:

 

Bison

Prairie Dogs

Burros

Lots of Bison with calves

Another hillside devastated by wind last winter. Looks like a giant’s toothpicks everywhere.