Border to Border Posse Ride '21 The Long Way Home +2-3

 Day two of the trip home was going by Devils Tower. This was on my list to see! Not researching or knowing anything more than it looked cool, it didn't disappoint either!

We even saw rock climbers! At Devils Tower, there was another boulder field which Zak and I climbed on with air this time. Somewhere during this excursion, I managed to hurt my back. I believe it was from carrying the camera and camera bag. As irritated as I am over it, I'm glad it waited until the trip home!

From here we left the park and the phone service messed up and I turned left at a light and quickly went I don't think this is the right place. I pulled over in a driveway and we pulled out the map. Locating ourselves and figuring out where we needed to be I put it in gear checked my mirrors and noticed Highway Patrol getting out of his car. I rolled down the window to him saying we don't allow parking here, it is clearly marked. I looked up and see a sign on the side of the road. To which I replied I saw that hence I pulled into this driveway to get my bearings, our GPS messed up and I believe I made a wrong turn. He then replied No Parking, there are too many wrecks with people pulling off. Where are you headed? He was helpful in confirming that I did indeed make a wrong turn and he was not trying to be a prick like my assumption. Thanks, I'm sure you get plenty of people pulling off here to take pics of the 'Tower' and I'm not sure if he was truly that nice or the fact that we had the atlas in our hands that changed the tone of the interaction. Regardless we got back on the road.

The next stop was Deadwood. It was Monday but since it was close enough to Sturgis we were hopeful it was going to be open. As luck had it, it was and it had my orange blanket! This was such a cool little town and would love to go back when it isn't peak motorcycle traffic.

We stopped in Mitchell, SD for the night and since we were in the car we canceled the stop in MO. The last 850 miles wasn't a rough ride home, just a car ride. For the most part, this was an uneventful day of driving. At one point we were running low on gas, and I clicked the search in Google Maps for Gas, found a station about 20 miles up. As we approached the exit, I did not notice any stations. Looking back at Google it was about 4 miles off. I removed the stop and searched for the next one, another 20 miles or so. At this point, the car is telling me I have about 40 miles left before empty. I notice on the road ahead a police car racing over the overpass and jumping on the interstate in front of me, didn't think much of it. About 5 miles down the road another Sherrif passing me like I was standing still, I was going about 80 mph. Laughing and telling Zak, hope we aren't going where he's going. A couple of miles later my exit comes up and I can see the gas station, we exit off. As I turn left to go towards the station on the other side of the interstate I can see the station, half a dozen police, and fire and rescue. I turn into the lot as someone is exiting and the police block my entrance to the pumps. Not our day!

We did make it to the next station about 10 miles later and fueled up.

One thing I took for granted on this road trip was the quality of the roads. Dallas to El Paso, that interstate beat us to death, but that was really all. Upon entering Arkansas every pothole was felt! It was either an indention or protrusion, no such thing as a smooth one. Every transition to a bridge or overpass is hammering you. None of the other states had this issue, why is that? Why is this a hard concept? Is it because of the plows and proper training for their road crews? They know that first snow, that plow will come barreling down the road and either destroy the patches or worse the plow? Regardless I wish we could have some out-of-state cross-training on this roadwork!

All said and done we went 6,781 miles, used about 232.438 gallons of fuel with about 29.17337 mpg.
We saw license plates from 46 states & DC, 2 Canadian territories/states, and 1 Mexican territory.
Zak got his collection of Poker Chips started off with 28
I managed to get 27 new chips, doubling my collection

Our next trip will be on the bikes and I hope to not only add chips but get some of the State Challange Coins in the 50 Rides 1 Nation. I already have Arkansas.