Day 5, august 7

August 7 

A word about about Wednesday night's dinner at Nonna Bella Italian restaurant in Berthoud.  Owned by well known chef, Tom Agnew, formerly of the Mansion on Turtle Creek and Agnew's in Dallas.  He and Dean Fearing worked together.  The food, service and wine were divine!  I'm going to let Zagat know that they need to visit him there.  Tom himself took care of us in fine fashion.

Thursday morning, Colorado through a piece of Wyoming.  Not as pretty.  I could see parts of the Rockies in the distance behind us.  We won't see them again on this trip.  

It was a long day because much of the driving was not interstate but rather smaller state highways.  Good roads but slower due to slow downs for towns.  

We stopped in Guernsey to see the Oregon trail ruts.  Deep ruts cut into solid stone by wagons traveling west with settlers.  I can't even imagine what a grueling trip that must have been and what courage it took for families to risk it.  In Guernsey we crossed over the North Platte River and loved it!  So beautiful and so fast moving.  

It is amazing how sparse the population is in Wyoming.  And though it is rolling plains, I still thought it was beautiful.  Interesting gray rock formations, horse ranches and a beautiful welcome center.  

We crossed into South Dakota for our first visit to that state.  Not impressive until we started seeing the forests and the Black Hills. Really impressive.

And then the fun really began!  It is Sturgis week!  If you don't know what that is, google it.  We were not aware of that until we had too many reservations made in other places of our trip and decided to risk it and come on up here.  We are about 90 minutes away from Sturgis so we thought that was a safe distance from the maddening crowds.  However, about 150 miles before our destination near Mt Rushmore, we drove through towns packed with motorcycles and bikers.  Couldn't even pull into a gas station for fuel as there were easily 40 to 50 bikers sitting in all directions at the stations, just hanging out.  Hmmmmm......  The closer we got the more bikers.  Hundreds on every street corner and in every restaurant, bar and parking lot.  It actually became rather exciting.  The highways were packed but we finally made it to our camp ground in the Black Hills (beautiful campground ), only to find that it too was packed with Sturgis folks.  Ok, so just chill and enjoy it, we told ourselves! They were very courteous about the quiet times here in the campground.  After check in and set up, we went to stand on the front porch of the office and watch the bikers come back down from their ride to the mountains on Needles highway.  A continuous stream of gorgeous motors and happy riders.  I got hooked easily.  Duh! And instead of wanting to stay away from Sturgis, guess where we are going for lunch tomorrow?  Right in the thick of it!  More to come, stay tuned!