MaxMetal Custom Motorcycles

I liked Sturgis!! It really is the granddaddy of all motorcycle rallies but it had a small town friendly feel to it.  For $4.00 - we  were able to park our bike in a shaded driveway; the homeowners were there to watch the bikes and they even offered free water and lemonade.  (This is in contrast to Myrtle Beach, where we got the feeling that local residents would enjoy running over a motorcycle.)  The town has only 6,700 people in it.  During the rally, the downtown area is taken over by rally vendors.  The traffic is very controlled but not congested, each corner is a 4 way stop.  And as soon as you leave the down town area you are on the open road again, Interstate 90, going 70 mph, heading toward one of the many area attactions, i.e. Mt. Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, the South Dakota Badlands, the Needles.  There are so many things to see in the area.  We only had a few hours to take in the main rally and no time to do sight seeing.  We will be back another time. 

Across the nation, the highways and the railroads run parallel courses.  I have always enjoyed watching trains.  As a child I counted rail cars as they passed the crossing and waved at engineers and the guy in the caboose.  (What is the guy in the caboose called?)  I miss the cabooses.  Trains and train tracks were a constant feature of the roadside throughout the trip.    

Burlington Northern train along Nebraska Highway 2.

Narrow gage railroad bridge in Montana.

Here is a website that has a lot more train pictures for people who are really into trains.   
  http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/index.html 

The railroad has a large part in the history of our country and in the history of my family.  My mother owns 160 acres that my great-great grandfather bought from the Union Pacific.  The US government deeded a large swath of land to the UP on either side of the tracks they were building.  This land was sold to settlers coming to the plains. 

We raced a storm across the prairie all afternoon.  Hour after hour, we watched the  clouds. The rain caught us just outside of Rapid City, SD. 

We pulled off the road when GT could no longer see the truck in front of us.  The downpour was brief and soon we were riding again, with a rainbow at our side.