What a great time. Tom, Hipster, and I took off on Sunday. He rode in from Minneapolis and met me here in Mitchell. We made our way out to the Hills by way of part of Sleddog's Trans SD route. During the week we rode a good part of the southern end of the DAKAL. What an amazing, tough at times, ride. It was so fun and Tom is a great guy to ride with.
Thanks to LD for leading the routes. The Caves route was awesome and every one had a great time. I ran sweep and enjoyed to day immensely. No real issues that day.
I took the next day, Saturday off to spend with my wife and also entertains Mrs Whacked. We returned to camp to find no one there. We waited and waited till riders began to trickle in. Then reports of a rider stuck on a trail by himself and a rescue was being planned. I won't tell the story as I was only a bystander. These are best told by the participants. Jayden should be the one to tell his side and Whacked should be the one to tell the rescue part and those that went, LD NDave and Gerry, can tell that part of the tale.
I had a great time on this whole trip from start to finish.
Thanks to Mrs LD, Lisa, and Mrs Grubby, Heidi, for preparing food. It was awesome. Thank you, thank you, Thank you!!!
As my wife and son made their way up to camp my son wanted to stop in RC to see if he could find some riding boots. As they were leaving they found a young guy (20ish) on a older DR350 who was having problems with his bike. He is a young guy who save a little money and was off on an adventure from Ohio west. My family was able to take him to Black Hills Powersports who were apparently unwilling to help this kid out so my family loaded his bike up and him and took him ti Rice Honda to because they said they could lend a bit of help even though they were busy. They dropped the guy off and a PM was sent to me on ADVRider that he was able to get the bike fixed without much effort. It was a mistake me made after installing some new jets.
I was a bit miffed over the Black hills Powersports thing as I've done some business with them and always felt they were good folks. So when pressed a bit, this young guy did say that he hadn't given them all the info on him predicament and in hindsight feels they woud have done more if they had had more info. I think his issue is that he wants to do this all on his own and is learning that the generosity of others is what makes our adventures successful.
I'm just glad that Anne and Nathaniel were in a place at the right time to help this guy out. His ride report can be found here:
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=977682Its a good read for a young guy looking for his place in this world.