We started the morning in Madison, South Dakota in what we thought was the middle of nowhere. As the metropolis of Madison slipped pass, we continued on SD-34W into what has to be some of the most undeveloped parts of the US. For the first 100 miles or so, it was just more flat, perfectly straight commercial farms, with what looked like soybean. But as the terrain became more interesting, the land became more hilly, the farms became ranches, The cattle we saw on the farms tended to be penned up in a dirt pen and fed what I assumed was corn. As these farms disappeared, the ranches were nothing but outlying fences on thousands of acres of grazing land where the cattle roamed free to graze to their hearts content. Eventually we made it on to the Crows Creek Indian Reservation, and the towns really began to disappear then. The smallest we saw was Vilas with a population of 19, but there were many "towns" that were merely a group of houses with populations well below 100.
     One of the things we learned after traveling through an Indian reservation, is there is NO civilization, stores, gas stations, anything for very long distances . So we should have taken care of things like gas and bathroom breaks before entering the reservation. Now we know. But for this case, we were looking for a McDonald's for our morning coffee break, and to let out some of the coffee we had at breakfast. Luckily, we had gassed up the night before, so by the time we realized there wasn't going be a McDonald's any time soon, we still had a little less than half a tank of gas left. But it took about another 50 miles before we finally found Mac's Corner, a Sinclair station out in the middle of nowhere, evidently run by Native Americans, so our bathroom crisis and impending gas crisis was averted. One thing we did find inside the gas station was a little bar with a half dozen stools, and a pot of coffee. So after filling the gas, and emptying ourselves, we parked the bike and went inside for some much deserved coffee. Imagine our surprise when we went to pay for the coffee and found it was only 25 cents per cup.  
     As we left Mac's Corner, we spotted a sign - "No Services for 66 miles" . I wish they had one of those signs when we left Madison. I was a nice morning, the weather was warming up, and the wind had died down, so we cruised along to steadily improving scenery. We did have one incident traveling through the reservation when we spotted a calf in the roadway, evidently having escaped the ranch fencing. I was at least smart enough to slow to a crawl as we went past, because sure enough, as soon as we got within a few yards, the calf spooked and ran across the street right in front of us without incident.
     As SD-34W become US-14W, we left the Indian reservation and civilization was approaching. Eventually we ended up in Pierre, South Dakota's capitol city with a population of 13,000.   It was a nice little town with a cool looking capitol building and a McDonald's on main street. So we had another coffee, shed a little outerwear as the temperature had made it into the mid-70's and the sun was out! West of Pierre is where the scenery really took off. The rolling hills became much more dramatic, and the sky really opened up . It seemed you could see for miles in any direction. We were too early to check into the hotel, so we decided to take a little side trip to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.
     They give guided tours of a shutdown missile silo, but since the facility is so small, there are only 6 people allowed on each tour. Tickets are free but on a first come first serve basis. When we saw a bunch of cars at the visitor center, we found that all the tickets for the day were gone. We could come back at 8 in the morning, but we already had plans for tomorrow, so we decided to drive down to the site and take a couple of pictures outside, and drive to the second site where you could take a picture of a missile still loaded in the silo. On the way to the first site, we encountered 3 horses wandering along the dirt road to the site. I don't know if they were wild or just escaped but I did that same as with the calf earlier and gave them plenty of room. But this time we did take a picture .
     All along US-14W we had been seeing signs to come to Wall Drug.   Not knowing what it was, but knowing that our hotel was in Wall, SD, it seemed likely that we would be staying nearby. Turns out the hotel is in walking distance, so we checked it out for a little while, went to the hotel and checked in, and then walked back.
      Downtown Wall, SD is basically one long strip of tourist shops on both sides of the street with a Post Office and a Harley dealer thrown in for good measure. At one end of this strip, and encompassing about half of the length of that side, stands Wall Drug. It is a drug store, souvenir shop, art gallery, restaurant, ice cream parlor, western outfitters, bookstore, jewelry store with things to do for the kids. In short, you can buy just about anything or do just about anything there. It was great fun, and the signs along the roadside said "Coffee 5 cents", so we went into the restaurant to see, and told the cashier we would like 2 cups of coffee, and he said that will be 10 cents with a penny tax, so 11 cents please . He pointed us to the coffee area and said we could just put a nickel in the box and help ourselves to a cup in the future.
    On the way to dinner, we stopped in one of the souvenir shops, and we noticed that they had a clearance rack with some ladies leather jackets. Jody spotted a black fringed jacket with indian beading on the shoulders. It was a heavy jacket that could easily have sold for the $200-$300 range, and the handwritten sign said "Single Item - No Backstock $40". So we asked the girl if the price was really $40, and she said yes they only had 2 left and they were size Small. So Jody got this awesome new leather jacket for only $40 - she was so excited that when we took it back to the room, she changed into her new jacket for dinner.
     For dinner we ate at the Cactus Cafe and Lounge, but the waitress told us that the menu was very limited as it wasn't quite season yet, so I had the Philly Cheese Steak and Jody had the Turkey Club which were both quite good. Since I saved a little room for some of that homemade ice cream at Wall Drug, we headed over and I had a butterscotch sundae.
     Tomorrow, we are off to Badlands National Park to do a little riding and a little hiking, and ending up in Lead, South Dakota for a couple of nights.

347.9 miles today
3257.7 miles total

9.298 gallons today
83.04 gallons total