Today we took one of the best, if not THE best drive Peggy or I have ever enjoyed. The strange part is that all of today’s run was in South Dakota. We started by driving from Heartland RV near Hermosa, SD, up SD-36, a road I mentioned a couple days ago. The terrain and scenery on this road are terrific and seem to change dramatically with the changes in the light. There are some nifty red rock canyons as you gain altitude and we got to check out the sights in the morning sun.
We turned north on SD-16A which is also called the Iron Mountain Road and right away started seeing big herds of bison that were calmly blocking the road. There were some bulls with the herd and they are very impressive critters, fully buffed out with rippling muscles and startlingly large testicles. They were also quite a few calves with this herd. We found they do not cotton much to cars and seem to have even less respect for motorcycles because one of our fellow motorists decided to pass through the herd without their consent. They must have gotten too close to one of the calves because Mom charged right up to the bike. I noted the visible parts of both the biker’s and his female passenger’s faces turned a very interesting shade of grey and pretty much remained that way even though the Mom stopped her charge before squishing the puny humans and their bike underfoot. I’m glad we were in Charlotte, one of the only vehicles in the queue more massive than the bison.
SD-16A is a road that challenges all drivers and particularly gives the willies to those driving big, long monsters like Charlotte. There are 300+ curves, two pigtail turns (where you pass over the road on a bridge, turn hard right and corkscrew under the bridge within about 300 feet), three tunnels less than 10′ wide and less than 10′ high and climb or descend a couple thousand feet within about 17 miles.
After clearing the bison herd, we continued to just outside the tourist Mecca of Keystone before turning west on SD-244. SD-244 wanders across the ridges of the Black Hills and the scenery is nothing less than spectacular. We did not think it could get much better until we reached SD-16, turned south and then east on SD-87, also called the Needles Highway. This road travels through the highest elevations in the Black Hills. After passing through the skinniest tunnel (and the most out-of-square tunnel) Peggy has ever rubbed the mirrors against rock in, we arrived at Sylvan Lake. This gorgeous body of water has grass meadows for about a third of it’s circumference and the remainder is surrounded by enormous stone monoliths in a compact arrangement that only allows one small exit for the water. There are a few granite islands in the center of the lake. This place is absolutely stunning.
From Sylvan Lake we continued on the Needles Highway passing through some more really skinny one-lane tunnels (no more mirror contact) and quite a few tight curves until we reached the Needles. Right at the top of this part of the road (about 6500′ elevation) there is a pull-out big enough for about 8 cars where hundreds of enormous rock sections have eroded in such a way that they are all pointy at the top. They stand up a hundred or more feet above the pull-out and you can get out and wander through the extremely narrow passages between individual sections. There is even a section where two pinnacles have leaned against one another resulting in an eye in the top of the needle. This place is a wonderland, the likes of which I have never witnessed previously. We were almost unable to drive because we kept stopping and taking pictures in all directions. There is no end to the magnificent scenery in this place.
We gradually descended down from the Needles through more gorgeous ridges and canyons until we got to SD-16A bypass through Custer State Park where we pulled out long enough to take some photos of some mountain goats that were browsing alongside the road. We got a few shots before some idiot decided to see if he could approach them in his Prius. The goats were unimpressed with his crybaby hybrid gerbil and they split. SD-16A bypass travels through some gorgeous canyons until it reaches SD-36 which we took back home although this time we got to see it in the afternoon light as a bunch of little fluffy clouds passed over the terrain. Another whole new aspect and it was the bee’s knees.