Day 21- July 12

Day 21: July 12th 33,986 miles on the odometer

We start the day driving down main street in Sturgis. They are preparing for the upcoming madness. We spend a couple of hours at the motorcycle museum, which has a nice collection of various makes and models from numerous manufacturers and time periods. It is definitely worth the price of admission. I like the vintage stuff, particularly the Flying Merkel and Vincent Black Shadow. Ceci seems more interested in the fancy/artistic custom bikes. Pretty to look at, but horribly impractical to ride. At the gift shop, I buy a “gremlin bell” for Ceci’s bike. She is a superstitious sort, so maybe it’ll work for her and the Vulcan will cease having its daily problems.
Maybe I should have bought one for myself. The Bandit is running rough; the carburation seems off. The next stop is the Crazy Horse Monument, not too far away, and on the way to Custer. The place is bike friendly; we pay $5 each to enter and park. That is half the posted price for cages. The monument itself is far from finished, but it appears they are making some progress. The museum is fantastic with lots of interesting exhibits to look at and a film about the project. We spend hours enjoying ourselves here. A little longer than originally planned, as I notice about ½ gallon of spilled gasoline that has leaked through my overflowing carbs and onto the parking lot. The engine is flooded locked. I shut off the gas from the tank with the extra valve Bubba installed as part of his fuel petcock “fix.” Nothing left to do now but wait for the fuel to leave the cylinders. We go back into the museum and eat dinner in the museum restaurant. The fare is OK but not great. About what you’d expect I guess. The view from our table was quite good at least.
We finally get my bike running, still not well, and head to Custer. The roads are pretty good; smooth, scenic, and curvy. There are a lot of bikes out here with us. Out west we saw mostly BMW’s. Here there are still a lot of those, but we are seeing a lot more cruisers.
Our final destination is the American Presidents Resort. It has cabins and campsites, a store, laundry, pool, and mini golf course. It also claims to be bike friendly, but the sloped gravel roads make things pretty tricky, especially when it is time to park. Our cabin, the Wilson, is right on a slope. Wilson is certainly not my favorite president, but at least I didn’t get the LBJ or Clinton cabin. The park looks like it is in a state of decline and as such is over-priced. I doesn’t seem like it would take much to make this a really good park, but as it is now I’d say it is on its way out. We try out the 12 hole mini-golf course. It is simple and poorly maintained, and my better half beats me by a stroke. Dadgumit. The small gameroom doesn’t have an air hockey table for me to regain my manhood either.
There are some nice views from the resort. The Black Hills in general are fairly scenic, with lots of trees and live water. Though pretty hot during the afternoon, it is comfortably cool in the morning and at night. We don’t need AC in the cabin at all, as the overnight temp drops into the high 30’s.
We travel a mere 71 miles today, but travel was not the goal. This is a destination we plan to spend some time at. Initially we planned a week, but we will be cutting a day or two off of that. There is a kitchen of sorts in the cabin, so I will get a chance to actually cook some meals for the next few days.