Another great day for riding. Temps high 50's to high 70's. I followed some thunder storms down to the Black Hills Forest. I was able to avoid any rain by taking Nemo Road which ran a little farther to the north of my planned route and then cutting back over to Hwy 365. I only had some wet roads and a few sprinkles.

I went by Mt Rushmore. Crazy Horse Monument and rode several fantastic roads in Custer State Park.

Black Hills - South Dakota

From Custer, SD my route was west on Hwy 16 into Newcastle, Wy, then Hwy 85 back to Spearfish Canyon (worth doing twice) and back to Spearfish.

Repacking tonight, rechecking routes and will be back on the road again in the morning headed toward Glacier National Park.

Headed west on Hwy 212. Nice terrain but nothing spectacular. Still very different from back at home. Stopped by Little Big Horn National Park.

Little Big Horn Battlefield NM - Montana

Temps up to 90 today so a little warmer.

Starting around mid afternoon, the Rockies are now in the background.

Some light to moderate winds from the SSE. With my route, this gave me a lot of tail winds and an average of over 51 mpg running 75-80 indicated.

I was racing some thunderstorms into Grand Falls. I lost! About 25 mile out I stopped to put on some rain gear. The wind almost blew the bike over. I had to stand on the down wind side of the bike to get my jacket on to keep the bike from going over. Re-mounted the bike (from the wrong side) and headed toward Grand Falls when the rain and lightning started. Got into Grand Falls and called it quits for the day. So did the rain and wind.

Headed toward Glacier National Park tomorrow.

Left headlight bulb went out yesterday. I went down to Sports City Cyclery this morning. I was there at 8:45 local time but they did not open until 9. Brent Grassman meet me as I pulled up and asked if he could help. Brent got them changing out the bulbs in no time and I was out by 10. Great service and dealership. They even knew how to change bulbs on a ST.

Weather report this morning had showed a sever line of thunders storms coming in from the west. As I headed north moderate winds started blowing from the WSW and I started to see clouds off in the west. It looked like I might be able to get around them by continuing north to Shelby. Stopped for lunch and when I came back outside the clouds were very dark and a storm was on its way. Thought I could out run it up to Shelby. Got to quit that thinking stuff. Strong cross winds hit but the St handled fairly well considering. I did make it to Shelby before the rain started. Other storms were forming further north and to the west so I decided to call it quits for the day and stopped in Shelby. Later I heard that the storm that I out ran had gusts up to 70 mph and pushed an 18 wheeler off of the road.

Long distance day. I traveled all of 98 miles. Will try for Glacier National tomorrow. However, forcast is for rain.

Temperature this morning was 55 with partly cloudy skies. The closer to the Rockies that I got, the more overcast the sky became. I entered Glacier National Park and after about a third of the way to the top I was in the clouds. At times visibility was around 30 feet and temps went down to 42. Just from what little I saw of the park it was awesome. The road was a very narrow two lane. On my right, instead of a shoulder, was a solid rock face. Numerous waterfalls were coming down the sides and I actually drove through several of them. A must do to return at a later time when the weather is better.

Glacier National Park

After I got on the west side of the park the temps went back up to 57 with a couple of ligh showers. Showers were short lived and around 30 miles south of the border, the sun came out and temps reached the low 70's. It was a great ride up a large valley to Cranbrook.

Cranbrook, British Columbia - View from motel

Need to update my map now and color in BC.

Hoping to make Kamloops tomorrow,

Started off at 50 this morning. About 20 miles north of Cranbrook I ran into fog, low clouds and the temperature dropped to 44. This continued for about another 40-50 miles then the sum came out.

British Columbia - Hwy 95

Went through the Glacier National Park in Canada. Sun was out and I could actually see the mountains. Awesome. The road was at a lower elevation than the US park, but still a great ride.

Glacier National Park - British Columbia

Good ride from there to Salmon Arm even though traffic had increased quite a bit. Just east of Kamloops I started losing the lush green of the mountains and the terrain started becoming more arid and the trees more sparse. Temp was up to 90. Started looking typical "out west".

After heading north out of Cache Creek, somewhere before 100 Mile House, the terrain started turning green again. Had a good ride from Cache Creek up to Williams Lake where I have stopped for the night.

If all goes well I am going to try to make Hyder tomorrow.