A Few Cool Photos

I thought I would add a few pictures here that were not included in the regular postings. We had so many good photos and so many neat places to see that with all the networking problems we just couldn't get everything we wanted uploaded. So..... here goes some more.

Here's the three of us in the first couple of days

 This is Doug's picture of the three holer at the Lincoln home in Springfield.
 Only question we had was "Why a three holer? Did we sit together and discuss the day?"  Can't quite grasp the concept.
Kind of a cool RR bridge we drove under.

                Can't tell you anything about this one, 'cept it's really there. Burl of Burlingame. Oh well.

This was just a neat stretch of road.
 Doug and Jim went to a railroad museum and took a few pictures there.

 Pikes Peak

Awesome views

Cripple Creek KOA

 Sandy and Pam arrive....lucky them.....
Before I go too far I have to tell Sandy and Pam we really enjoyed having them riding along. Having women along gives things a slightly different perspective than that of just 3 guys. You ladies were very good sports through some difficult riding and some uncomfortable camping. Gotta admit though, it was fun! The hail storms, rain on the narrow mountain roads, 30 degree nights, 100 degree days, 300 mile days, 500 mile days, phone booth sized showers, the miles of dirt and gravel roads, campground laundries, mice, and all the other stuff I've already forgotten about. That's the stuff REAL memories are made of!.....Wait....if I've already forgotten....where's the memory?
 That's why there's pictures...of course!
Memorial outside the Coors brewery.


 American Legion


 USAF



That's it for today. I'll add more soon.

HOME!

Our last camp of the trip. This was in Illinois somewhere. Not really sure where. After checking the maps we decided we would just stop if we saw something interesting. We've pretty much done nothing but drive for the last days. The day after we said goodbye to Sandy and Pam, we drove 538 miles, the next day was 512, and the last day the drive home was around 300. The total mileage for the trip was 6465 miles. That's a lot of saddle time, even spread over 23 days.

 Dough thought this was a good shot of the new energy programs,(none of them are moving)

 Some very long trains can be seen along the US highways.

 Our last stop for a drink before the last leg home.  This was near Belterra.

One last trip in the bag. Once more a few weeks spent riding this countries, highways and by ways. I believe we are a very fortunate group that can spend this time exploring this country. My hope is we can continue this extraordinary pastime. I think we can. Next years is already in the planning stages, and might include some interesting side trips with a few additional people. Could be fun, stay tuned.

Day 21

Day 21 started out with the normal coffee and tea. Then it was off to breakfast.
Peggy's Place was a bit expensive for what it was, but the food was good.

On to Badlands.

After a couple trips through the Badlands, it was obvious that this was one of those places that was best seen once.


The Missile Control room was next on the agenda. Doug wanted to see a real missile silo. It turned out, you couldn't see a silo near where we were, but we could go down to a missile control room.

 The gates at the Missile control base.

Above are some of the antenna for communication.

We went into the building housing the control room. The control room was 30 feet below ground and is reached by elevator. There is an 8000 lb door to the control room.

 Above:  Wall drug for free water Whoopee!
Doug, Jim Sandy and Pam head to the airport at Rapid City for a night in a hotel before the flight home in the morning. I rode the other direction to the KOA to get a campsite for the night. 

 Doug and Jim showed up about 9:30 or 10.
Tomorrow we'll be on the road again.

Day 20

On day 20 it was a ride around the Black hills and Custer Park.
 We took a wildlife loop around the park. We saw many bison, prong horns, sheep and, of all things, mules, mules looking for a hand out.

From Custer we drove across Needles Highway toward the Crazy Horse Memorial
This was a very cool road to ride across. Narrow, winding, sometimes separating into two one way roads, then recombining again after a few hundred yards.

 Below:  The eye of the Needle

Crazy Horse

The head of the horse will be larger than Mt Rushmore.

After Crazy horse we went back to the KOA and then took the bus to Mt. Rushmore for the night lighting of the statues. It was a pretty moving thing to see, and participate in.
During the lighting ceremony at Rushmore there was a ranger who was the speaker for the program. Again a very knowledgeable speaker.

The ranger doing the presentation at one point asked that all veterans come down to the stage. I'm in the back on the left.  Jim is to the right several people over against the wall.

He thanked us all for serving and then had us retire the flag. Pretty awesome. We got to be up front and on site for the flag lowering ceremony. One of the Vets lowered the flag, then six of the Veterans folded the flag. I was impressed, it was an excellent and properly folded flag.

After Rushmore  it was back (by school bus) to the campground to prepare for tomorrow.
So until tomorrow,