Headed west, expecting a long road day. Flat plains eventually gaining some rolling hills and ranch land
until we hit Sturgis. We refuel at the gas station, still cool to see the iconic setting….
It was only 11am when we got into Sturgis so we decided to take Hwy14a into the Black Hills National forest just to shake the straight prairie road dust off us. Through Deadwood and across to the Spearfish Valley Scenic Byway. We stopped for lunch at Spearfish Falls, a nice walk down to the falls; any walk with mountain river views makes my day. Spearfish falls was allowed to start flowing again in 2003 after hydroelectric plant used for the local gold mine was decommissioned.
One picnic table under a tree at this recreational site and a restaurant; fairly full parking lot and no competition for the picnic table, it was a lovely day to be outside. No wonder it is getting harder and harder to find picnic table sites outside recreational areas. They are not utilized.
We rounded out the tires again, they were wearing flat from all the straight miles.
Heading across the rangelands of Wyoming we could see clouds were getting serious about starting something. We stopped for fuel, a gent walked up and mentioned there were weather warnings for large hail and extreme wind gusts within an hour. 
We headed to Gillette and found the DQ to ‘hole up in’. It was very busy when we walked in, it took time to order and many were sitting enjoying themselves when a cellphone rang and a local said ‘the sirens are sounding’. We asked what this meant and apparently it means extreme weather has been reported in the area, its fairly generic. The place cleared out pretty fast. We had our choice of seating for viewing the storm.
Wasn’t sure what we going to do if things got crazy, fortunately it didn’t but those green tones in the cloud was a little unsettling.
After the storm had passed we headed out again we found lots of hail on the edge of the highways and the winds were a challenge to ride in when the highway crested a hill,
which seemed to happen quite a bit. We only rode for an hour and settled in for the evening.
canyouwingit 