Late in the afternoon, I headed out toward Custer on my way to Rapid City Regional Hospital. An elderly church member had fallen and broken both his hip and femur. There were thunderstorms all around, but none were terribly active when I left and I guessed that I could get to Rapid without hitting too much rain.
But north of Crazy Horse, the roads were increasingly wet and the mist was falling harder. Then just past the road to Sylvan Lake and the Needles Highway, I saw flashing lights. Highway Patrolman were diverting all but local traffic. Somewhere up ahead, US-16 was flooded.
It turned out that the detour on SD244 was almost exactly the same distance, but there was a much lower speed limit and a few extra stops. 244 is the road that takes you to Mt Rushmore's parking and then through Keystone on 16A before rejoining 16 3-4 miles north of Keystone.
In Keystone, there was running water filling a ditch on the east side of the main drag and it was inches from covering the street, so when I left the hospital, I decided to ride home on a bit more round-about route. I got on to I-90, rode past Spearfish to Sundance, WY, and came home down WY-585. The sunset just before I got to Sundance was beautiful and I only saw about 5 deer in one little herd (too close to US-85!) about 13 miles north of Newcastle. As have the other Black Hills deer I've seen, they moved away from the highway as I approached (good deer!).
I finally realized that this behavior is undoubted related to my State Farm mini-deer whistle that I've got mounted under the fairing.
So, for all the detouring I did, I only added about 50 miles to what would have been 154 miles and rolled 204 miles today.
But north of Crazy Horse, the roads were increasingly wet and the mist was falling harder. Then just past the road to Sylvan Lake and the Needles Highway, I saw flashing lights. Highway Patrolman were diverting all but local traffic. Somewhere up ahead, US-16 was flooded.
It turned out that the detour on SD244 was almost exactly the same distance, but there was a much lower speed limit and a few extra stops. 244 is the road that takes you to Mt Rushmore's parking and then through Keystone on 16A before rejoining 16 3-4 miles north of Keystone.
In Keystone, there was running water filling a ditch on the east side of the main drag and it was inches from covering the street, so when I left the hospital, I decided to ride home on a bit more round-about route. I got on to I-90, rode past Spearfish to Sundance, WY, and came home down WY-585. The sunset just before I got to Sundance was beautiful and I only saw about 5 deer in one little herd (too close to US-85!) about 13 miles north of Newcastle. As have the other Black Hills deer I've seen, they moved away from the highway as I approached (good deer!).
I finally realized that this behavior is undoubted related to my State Farm mini-deer whistle that I've got mounted under the fairing.
So, for all the detouring I did, I only added about 50 miles to what would have been 154 miles and rolled 204 miles today.