I got up early on Day 3. Couldn’t sleep for some reason. By 4am, I was writing day 2 and then getting that published. By 5am, the first thing I noticed is that the sun was coming up quickly? The farther north you are, then the earlier the sun comes up in the summer and more daylight you have to work and play. Since we were playing, this gave me the opportunity to head downstairs and get the bike washed. Lots of bugs accumulate over 500+ miles. We ate breakfast at the hotel, packed the bikes and headed out.
Our trek today would take us north on I-25 for about 7 miles and then turn off on 85 to head up the eastern side of Wyoming. This is such beautiful country. Lots of undulating pasture land as far as the eye could see. Some of it contained crops, other was just green grass with a herd of cattle or horses milling about. The one thing it didn’t contain is people. As we were traveling these roads, there were very few cars we passed. As you can tell from the shot above, not much traffic. Montana is known for big sky country, we believe Wyoming should be included in that as well. Amazing views.
For the most part, the weather was on the chilly side. Temps in the low 60’s to upper 50’s. We handled that okay in our standard gear configuration. For me that looks like a Nike quick dry t-shirt, thermal long sleeve shirt, jacket and safety vest. Jeans, my bike over-pants, and riding boots completes the setup. This is comfortable up to about 85 where I have to take off the thermal shirt to stay cool.
We made our way north to a town called Torrington where we stopped for gas at a Maverick station. We then encountered potential rain. We stopped along the road to add the layer of rain protection gear and then continued on. Never encountered rain until after Lusk which is a very small town in Wyoming. And, it wasn’t really rain we encountered. It was more like driving through a thick cloud. Kind of foggy here and there with some droplets. We were at about 5,000 ft above sea level and the clouds just seemed to rest on the ground. The worse part of that was the other cars that didn’t have their headlights on. This is a real pain. We were following about 4 cars including a truck. The weather finally broke and we were able to get around them and cruise on at our normal cruising speed of about 82mph.
Another hour or so later, we made it to Newcastle, WY. Another small town, but not as small as the last. We topped off our fuel tanks and found a Subway for lunch. The weather was getting much warmer here so we removed a layer before heading into South Dakota.
Coming out of Newcastle, we followed 16 east from there into the black hills. Very pretty country up here. It is way better than what we are used to seeing on our daily commutes.
Through the black hills and all of a sudden, we see a face on the side of a mountain. We decide to check it out and unknowningly we had stumbled across Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse is a statue being built similar to Mt Rushmore. It is being carved out of the side of the mountain using drills and dynamite. We stopped in there for a few pics.
Continued on north on 385 up to the Lead / Deadwood area. Drove by a lake that was very pretty and I grabbed a few snapshots as we made our way along. 
We finally pulled into our cabin around 2:30. My wife flew into Rapid City SD and drove up. She met us there around 4:30 as she had stopped for groceries and beverages. We helped her unload the car, unpacked our gear and clothes we had on the bikes. Finally proceeded to cook some steaks and baked potatoes while watching the Coca Cola 600 that evening. We did encounter some deer walking through the woods behind the cabin and grabbed a few shots of them. Our first major wildlife sighting!
That concluded day 3.Mileage Report
Morning odo reading: 3317
Evening odo reading: 3639
Miles for the day: 322
Trip start odo reading: 2417
Miles for the trip: 1,222
alexon2wheels.com 