10/2-Monday: We didn’t hurry out to go riding since it was only about 48 degrees this morning. We slept fine and kept warm with the propane furnace set at about 60 degrees. While I was enjoying my coffee prepared in my stove-top percolator, I watched a parade of turkeys go by! They were just out grazing and meandered right along. As I was watching out the window, there was one in the back that turned around and came towards Nitro, checking ME out! HA! I love camping in the forest. Don’t these guys know that they’re going to be the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinners all across America in just about seven weeks?
We finished up breakfast, I made us some samiches for lunch, and we headed out for a ride in Kawi. I had no idea what the trails would be like here. Well, our first one seemed to just follow a creek bed, and we found some very large boulders. Hmmm … that didn’t look like something we wanted to tackle on our own.
This was a bail out option up to a road, but with the clay being wet, I voted no to the hill, and suggested we turn around. Kenny nosed us up the hill a bit, and when we were about half way up he also decided it didn’t look great, so he backed down.
Apparently we backed down right over the top of a giant rock, and high centered poor lil Kawi! Our big tires and suspension just glided right over it like no big deal. Huh! The tires were just barely off the ground, but enough that neither tire on the passenger side could get a grip. Welp, good thing we have a winch! That little peak in the rock was right on the frame and Kawi’s side was teetering.
It just so happened that there was a handy tree right where we needed one, so we got the winch cable out and around the tree, and Kenny got us un-stuck. Well heck – we might as well have a little bit of adventure, right??
The colors of fall have been so pretty to ride in. Today was very cloudy and foggy, so we didn’t have the benefit of sunshine to brighten the colors for us. In fact, we were driving right through the clouds and mist some of the time.
The trail was full of rocks which are generally not a problem for Kawi. It makes the trail more interesting.
These rocks were a little steeper than they looked and I had gotten out to find a path for Kawi. He tootled up them just fine and while I was out watching I got to take some pictures and video.
Ta-Da! He climbed right up these buggers, the little mountain goat. Speaking of goats, we haven’t seen any critters other than a few birds and chipmunks. Maybe it’s too close to hunting season and all the big game critters are hiding. I kinda feel like maybe I should be wearing some bright orange so nobody thinks I’m a critter when I’m outside of Kawi.
Yep – more big rocks!
We got up on what seemed like would/could be a nice view point, but all we could see was clouds and mist.
We came around a corner and this bunch of aspen (?) was just about glowing with color! The sun was shining on it and it was brilliant. By the time I picked up my phone to take a picture, some fog mist blew right between us, but it is still a pretty picture. There is a little bit of red in the bushes in front, and that’s the only red we’ve seen. None of the trees have red or even orange leaves.
With all the fog and no views to see, we made a loop and went back to camp. We ate our lunch, and then since it was only about 2:30, I convinced Kenny that we should take Henry into Rapid City to get his tire fixed. At least by doing it today, if they have to order a new tire for us, it gives another day before we’re headed farther east. So we headed out to Rapid City to the Discount Tire store. They were busy but said they could get to it within an hour. So I found the Independent Ale House in town, and we went and had a beer. Yes, really. We were only there for about 15 minutes and Kenny got a text to return to the tire shop. Did that mean they fixed it, or decided it cannot be fixed and they have to order one?
This place had about 25 beers on tap, and a handful of dark ones, so we each had a pretty yummy beer. But we finished them up pretty quickly, and headed back.
The good news is that the object in the tire was only about a half inch long, so it was just through the tread enough to cause it to leak, but no big damage. They plugged it and patched it, and when we arrived they got it put back on Henry in a jiffy. We were all done and out of there by 5:00. Whew! With that done, we will have all day tomorrow to do whatever. It’s supposed to thunderstorm all afternoon tomorrow, so we originally thought we’d do the tire then. But just in case that changes, we’ll be able to do other stuff if we want.
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Tuesday Oct 3: We woke up to a nice sunshiney morning! We hung around for a few hours and waited for the temperature to get above 50 degrees, then decided since it wasn’t raining, we might as well go out for a little ride. The forecast still called for thunderstorms and rain, but not nearly as bad as previously predicted.
This particular place where we’re camped does not have an over abundance of trails to ride. There are forest service roads, but many of them are dead ends so it’s hard to do any loops like we like to do. We figured we’d just hit a couple of places that we didn’t see yesterday, and see if we could see any good views.
We were out for about a half an hour and came around the corner to a deer in the road! YAY!! A critter! She bounded off into the woods, and then I could see that there were three deer. They were white-tails, and stood there looking at us while we looked at them trying to figure out how many there were. Can you see the one looking at us? Just to the left of the base of the big tree.
Here’s a zoom-in. And you can just make out the back of another one behind her ears. This is why we like to ride in the forest.
We did find some much better views than yesterday!
Of course, I have to put in a Kawi commercial. 🙂
Even without much oranges or reds in the autumn colors, it is still very pretty riding here in the fall!
We could see mountains waaaaay over there! That might be Custer Peak? It’s too bad that we cannot access more trails from here. I had planned for us to stay in the Black Hills for four nights, so in case we wanted to move and do two nights in one spot and two nights in another for more riding opportunity, we could. But we decided that we like our spot so we’ll just ride what we can here.
We had a couple of light sprinkles while we were out. It has rained each night, so the mud puddles keep getting bigger. We’ve been through a lot of them today!!
We headed back to camp around 2:00 when the clouds started looking ominous. It never did RAIN, just sprinkles off and on until well into the evening when it finally rained. But no big thunderstorm.
At camp, looking out our big window, I’ve been enjoying watching the birds. These are much lighter than the blue jays I’m used to seeing in Washington. Hmmm… are they blue jays or something else? They have spikey head feathers like a jay.
Their light blue feathers are really pretty!!
I wondered it these were really blue jays or what? As a matter of fact, these light blue birds ARE blue jays. The ones with the black heads like we see in Washington are NOT blue jays even though that’s what we call them. They are actually called Stellar’s Jays. Here’s some scoop from The Google:
The Blue Jay is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to eastern North America. It lives in most of the eastern and central United States.
A large, dark jay of evergreen forests in the mountainous West, Steller’s Jays are common in forest wildernesses and campgrounds.
Now you’ve had a bird lesson!
We hung out in the RV the rest of the day, thinking we’d have a thunderstorm at any minute. It never happened. I went outside for a little walk and saw the white tail of a deer go bounding through the trees – RIGHT HERE! She was much too fast for me to get a picture, but her tail was like a white flag bouncing through the trees.
Tomorrow we’ll go on a longer adventure. I’m certain that we’re OK to drive on gravel or even paved roads here, since Kawi is licensed for on-road travel. We even saw side-by-sides driving through town when we were in Deadwood. It is South Dakota…. the Wild West, right? We may have to go a few miles on real roads to get beyond our area here. We’ve done 21 miles and 16 miles in the last couple of days (the red and purple dot trails). Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and windy, with no chance of rain, so we’ll venture out farther and see what we can find.
