Date	Start Location	End Location	Start Time	End Time	Start Mileage	End Mileage	Daily Mileage	Weather Conditions
Day 54 Fri 8/8	Bad Lands, South Dakota	Rockerville	9:00a	6:45p	30,433	30,682	249	Gorgeous, followed by massive hail then rain and ending with sunny and beautiful
Travel Highlights
Today we finally got back to some seriously beautiful riding. The black Hills get the most desired riding area award so far. We rode through Custards National Park and took the “wild animal loop” and saw two large buffalo herds, a couple of mountain deer, prairie dogs and about a half a dozen donkeys that were blocking the road. The road blocking looked like a strategy based on the amount of attention and food they received. As the pictures will demonstrate we were pelted by hail that was almost a half-inch in diameter. It is hard to understand considering the temperature was well over 80 degrees. But as the sheer pain of being hit in the ears, hands and face will attest, it was, in fact, chunks of ice. We saw some of the best riding roads I have ever experienced and had the pleasure of sharing them with hundreds of other bikes. The mountains, towns and everywhere in between are packed with bikes. We also saw Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse’s monument. Both very cool and equally as inspiring. As we left Crazy Horse we were still in rain and as we came to the bottom of the road we were at a 20 - 30 degree angle in a braking turn when I saw that there was a cattle guard about 10 feet ahead. I could not adjust the bike to take it square on as usual and had to cross my fingers. When the back tire hit the metal we slid at least 3-4 feet but thank god when we hit the asphalt the tire bit and the bike up-righted itself. Shew – it was way too close for me. We were booked to camp tonight, as everything around has been booked for 2-3 times the going rates for months. We didn’t want to camp so we decided to take a shot at a couple of local hotels on the way and hope our amazingly good fortune at finding on-the-spot places to stay would once again pay off. Well the 3rd place we tried was not only available but it was about the same price as a KOA cabin and they let me wash the bike so we could ride into Sturgis freshly polished the next day. Major bonus!!!