The Black Hills...

After Sturgis, we moved over to Rapid City. It has a cool, walkable downtown. Rapid City is referred to as the City of Presidents. The downtown boasts life size bronze statues of past presidents, 42 so far, all privately funded.














Our walk around also included a trip down Art Alley. Participating businesses issue permits for artists to express themselves on the doors and back walls of their business.

Such a great idea!

Even without a motorcycle, we had to explore the Black Hills. Driving some of the routes advertised for the bike riders, we could see why it's such a draw for anyone who loves to ride. The roads were good, just curvy enough with low speed limits so that everyone gets to look around. And the scenery is amazing. Again with the amazing scenery.









We headed over to Deadwood for the day. What a cool old town. You can visit the Adams Museum, full of Black Hills history. Walking the streets will be very different when they are not lined with motorcycles. These folks are everywhere.



You will be happy to know that we found a wine bar in Deadwood. Excellent wines, and the food was good. Even had a little live music. Win!

We returned to Rapid City via Spearfish Canyon. Beautiful scenery everywhere.

We had to visit the South Dakota Air & Space Museum. It's free and has an impressive collection of aircraft. Ellsworth AFB is a B1 base, and there is one front and center. The other cool thing about Ellsworth is that they were a training facility for the 44th Missile Wing of the Twentieth Air Force. For a few extra bucks, you can tour the training facility and see the Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. 








Inactive, of course. But still a thought provoking display. These missiles were scattered throughout the country ready to destroy our enemy. 

More scary and real was our concern for our tour driver. He was probably 80+ and went down and back up all those steps with us. Once on the bus, he started to wheeze and had to use an inhaler. One of these days a tour will have to make a 9-1-1 call from a missile silo. That will be a first.