Day Two - FIN

I awoke this morning in Beautiful Butte, MT.  Outside temps were about 25 degrees.  Brrr….Car covered in 1/8th of icy-frost stuff. Last night was restless.  I dozed off about 11:30p or so.   I tossed and turned for most of the night.  The 4 large pillows in bed with me were not a substitute for a nice soft body beside me.  Sleeping alone sucks.

As I was getting into my car i noticed a Freakin- HUGE Virgin Mary atop a peak up from my hotel.  She lights up at night!

After fuel  and about 10 minutes cleaning my car’s wheels of 1100 miles of brake-dust, I headed east.  I LOVE 75mph speed limits. I honestly do.  (sigh).  The cold temps brought slick roads as I crossed the continental divide at nearly 7000 feet.  Surprisingly, the car didn’t feel too-awfully-sluggish up that high.

On the down-side of the pass, I encountered VERY thick Fog.  I used my GPS to give me warnings of pending corners and curves ahead! I wasn’t white-knuckling it, but I did have to slow to a more REASONABLE speed.

My 2nd Fuel stop was in Gillette, WY.  I pulled off the highway and into a Flyin’ J. As I was measuring my 2-cycle oil, I realized I wouldn’t have enough for the whole trip; thankfully there was a Checker Auto Parts nearby.  As I was fiddling in the car, shutting things down, a guy in a beater Cadillac pulled in beside me.  A young man got out - probably late teens, early 20s.  He was looking at my car.  A lot.  When I stepped out, he said “Nice car!”

” Thanks”

“Wanna race?” he offered.  I really think he was serious.

“Uh.  No?  I don’t race people.  The car looks too good to race folk.”

“I’ve got a Mistubishi VR4 with twin terboze, all-wheel-drive and Noss…It’s so fast”

I gave him a ‘wtf’ look as he just got out of a beater Caddy.

“It’s at my mom’s place in Colorado - i just got the caddy.”

“Oh. Aight then. ”

A few hours later I turned off I90 and headed North, towards Devils Tower National Monument.  It took all I had to keep from testing the speed limiter during stretches of road like this:

As I got closer to the tower I was gifted with some of the very best roads I’ve driven.  Absolutely beautiful.  The road has a 65mph speed limit, so it was nice to have ‘head room’ and BLAST corners without/or barely breaking the limits.

THIS IS IMPORTANT.  THIS MEANS SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-)  I’d stopped at KFC in Gillette and picked up a Large Mashed Taters, sans Gravy.  I think it’s neat.  I laughed.  People looked at me VERY FUNNY/ODD as they saw me carrying a load of mashed taters on a paper sack.  The bus-full of Japanese tourists either laughed or moved to the OTHER side of the trail.  While I was setting up a few pics with the taters on my RX8, an obvious climber walked by.

“NICE Car!”

“Well thank you!” I said

“Man, I’ve always wanted one of those.”

“Invest in an oil company if you do - it uses a lot of oil and gas!”

On the way back down to the highway I stopped for a pic of a buddy.  I’m going to call him Stephen Wilds.   Just fits him, don’t you think?

One final pose with the Rock!

A couple hours later, I FINALLY made it to tonite’s end-of-journey.  Holiday Inn, Rapid City.

After I got unloaded, I went and found dinner:

I had a bacon Cheddar burger w/ hotwings sauce on the side. FANTASTIC! The Honey-Rye beer was good, too!

Now, I’m back at the hotel, exhausted. At check in, I met a licensed massage therapist.  $55 for one hour. Full Body.  Wow.  I can’t tell you how tempted I am to call the girl.