From Bloomington, IN to Salem, SD

August 10, 2004

We leave Bloomington 6:48 in the morning. It's warm and humid already. At 9am. we take a break in Urbana-Champaign in Illinois and visit Paradiso Cafe, a hippie-style cafeteria on campus. Next stop is at 2pm. in Iowa City, another college town. We have lunch in a noodle bar.

Heading to Sioux City we see signs advertising the ice cream capital of the world, Le Mars, Iowa. Finally, at 9pm. we reach I-90. It rains a bit, just enough to paint a nice rainbow to the evening sky. Driving against the setting sun is painful.

We get hungry and stop at the Hartford Steak Co. Tavern for filet mignon dinners ($5.95 each). Price includes a side salad, bread and a baked potato. But what on earth is "large filet mignon" in their menu?

We continue for few more miles to Salem. We take the last vacant room in Home Motel for $50 (+taxes). It is a smoking room, but it does not smell bad.

From Salem to Jackson, WY

August 11

Alarm goes off at 5:30am. Morning is cool, at lower 40s, and cloudy. We hit the road at 6:15am. We have breakfast at Country kitchen in Mitchell - buffet for $6.95, and garden omelette for $5.95. We visit Keelboat Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Chamberlain (picture at right) and find some useful maps. After leaving the center we cross the Missouri River at 8:50am. We continue on I-90. The roadside is full of billboards and the road full of bikers heading to or coming from the Annual Black Hills Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis. Later we hear that some 600,000 bikers attended the rally.
	We spend about three hours on the scenic drive through the Badlands National Park (rest of the pictures on this page are from there). We hike on the hills and stop at every overlook. The place is gorgeous, and out of this planet, so to speak. Here is a large picture over one of the very best sceneries.

We arrive at Spearfish around 3pm. and have lunch in a familiar Espresso bar; we finished our last year's trip here. We realize that it is impossible for us to get in Jackson by 9pm. when we are supposed to return the car. Due to inadequate road signs around Gillette we get lost a couple of times on state roads 50 and 59. To be safe, we return to I-90 and take it all the way to Buffalo. We continue on I-25 south to Casper. There are absolutely no other cards on that highway. Furthermore, it is flat and straight. We are in Casper around 8pm., and we still have several hundred miles to go. We pass the last obstacle on our way to Jackson, Togwotee pass (9658') in dark. The descent from the pass is curvy and scary, but we are delighted by several shooting stars. Finally we are in Jackson (elev. 6208') at 2am. The motel office is closed at this ungodly hour, but they left a post-it note on the door indicating our room. Being tired it took minutes to realize that the key is under the doormat. Sweet dreams. The alarm is supposed to go off at 8am. next morning, August 12, our first day of riding.

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