Bikerscum - Patrick St. Jean

It was a busy day today, met some of the North Texas Netscum for breakfast at Mama's Daughter's Diner, then headed over to Competitive Cameras to see if I could find a more convenient bag for carrying the camera around D.C. in May. Thankfully, I did. I've now got a SlingShot 300 AW and amazingly enough all of the gear fits in it. I'm happy that I found something that looks like it'll work out. After that I went up to Homebrew Headquarters to pick up ingredients for a batch of wheat beer and some corks and a corker so that I can finally get the mead bottled. Looks like that's going to be next weekend's project. It was a pretty successful and productive day.

I lucked out and was able to attend for a couple hours today. It's the first Apple trade show I've been to in about 15 years and was just as much fun and a LOT bigger. There were a ton of vendors and quite a few caught my eye.

Software Bisque is about to bring out a port of their The Sky package and I will be buying it when it's available. The demo they had running looked great and I can't wait to have a native Mac based astronomy package. That only leaves the Garmin GPS holding me to Windows.

I also picked up a Tough Skin iPod case from Speck Products because the show discount was so good. It's a great case, and covers up everything possible, including the screen. The controls and data ports are all still available and the thickness of the case doesn't impair them at all.

Canon also had a big booth set up showing off all of their wares. I got a chance to play with the macro lens I've been looking at picking up and it's now at the top of my list.

All in all it was a lot of fun and if I'm in town the same time next year I'll more than likely attend.

I went down to Competitive Cameras today and picked up Canon's 70-200 F2.8L IS lens as an early Christmas present to myself. After seeing how soft the long distance shots from Devil's Tower came out using my old 70-300 F4.5-5.6 I decided to get a real long lens. Well, this one certainly is. It's a big, heavy sucker, but it takes great pictures. The image stabilization is incredible. I'm back in the position of having equipment which is better than me so I guess it's time to find some stuff to shoot with it. I'm going to try the moon tonight to see how well the image stabilization works out.

I took a personal day today and went to the State Fair. It was my first trip out and while I'll probably go again, it won't be for a few years. Fair Park is pretty cool though, with lots of Art Deco buildings to see. I had to have one of the original Fletcher's Corny Dogs, which was good. I also tried the fried Coca-Cola, which wasn't.

The most memorable part of the day was the butterflies at the botanical gardens exhibit. I've got some really good pictures of them that I'm going to enter in the photography competetion for next year's fair.

Take a look at them over in the gallery.

I took a little time today to head over to Fort Worth to go see the Hatshepsut exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum. It was a really good exhibit with a lot of small and large pieces and good explanations of each one and their significance. It's going to be there until the end of the year so if you've got some any interest in seeing it, buy some tickets and go!

Afterwards I headed over to the Amon Carter Museum to look at the Remingtons and was pleasantly surprised to find a photography exhibit featuring works by Robert Glenn Ketchum. That's another one that everyone should go see. After seeing it I realize how much I've got to learn about photography.

I'm still working on the ones that will end up being printed and maybe even put in to a book thanks to Aperture, but all of 497 of them, for better or worse, are posted in the gallery.

I got an early start this morning, heading from Custer to Rapid City to pick up I-90 and get to The Badlands. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the dealership in Hill City was open, so I stopped in and picked up some shirts. After that I cruised out to the park.

The Badlands is amazing. I stopped every chance I could to take pictures. The formations have an otherwordly beauty which just drew me in. After the first few miles it was hard to think that I was still in the plains of South Dakota. I ended up filling up the first 2 gig card and started in on the second one.

After leaving the park I headed on down the highway to tonight's stopping point in Siuox Falls, crossing back in to the Central time zone. I made one final stop in Mitchell to get a picture of the Corn Palace. After that I got in to Sioux Falls and got a room for the night.

I've got about 340 miles to do tomorrow to get to the rally site outside of Kansas City.

I budgeted today to do some sightseeing at the Crazy Horse monument and Mount Rushmore. Staying in Custer was a good idea since it's less than 20 miles from Mount Rushmore and only about 4 miles from Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse was the first stop of the day and I'm really glad it was. It is an amazing place and well worth the trip. They have an extensive museum and educational center where visitors can learn about Crazy Horse's life and Native American culture. I made a donation in order to take a van ride up to the arm and got a pleasant surprise when I found out that Gavin McLeod was also going up. The trip to the top was great and we were fortunate to also be joined by Joel, one of sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski's sons. Between Pete and Joel we learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes at the monument. The view from the top was amazing and is a memory I will always treasure.

After that I headed up to Hill City for lunch and a stop at the local dealer to pick up some shirts. Unfortunately, the dealer was closed so I settled for a buffalo burger at The Bouncing Buffalo.

Finished with lunch I set out for Mount Rushmore. The roads out to it were a lot of fun to ride, with lots of twisties to keep you paying attention. Thanks to a tip from a fellow rider I got rock star parking in lot 6 and headed in. After seeing Crazy Horse I was a little underwhelmed, but it was still a very impressive site and I'm glad I went. There is a really nice trail which takes you around to different views. A word of advice, if you don't want a workout, start the trailto the left. If you start it on the right you will climb a lot of stairs.

And finally I headed back to the hotelfor an early night since I want to get an early start tomorrow. The Badlands await...

I decided to have an argument with the GPS this morning which ended up costing me 45 minutes to backtrack and get on the right road. Once I got back on Wyoming 59 I made good time up to Gillette. That road went through some of the most desolate country I've seen on this trip. But what sticks in my mind is the literally hundreds of roadkill rabbits on it. They must really have a rabbit problem there!

After a quick lunch in Gillette I made my way to Devil's Tower. I really can't put into words just how amazing a sight it is. I wish I had had the time to hike the trail around it. But I did get some really good pictures of it and some of the prairie dogs that live in the park.

After that I hit the road for South Dakota, with stops in Sturgis and Deadwood before arriving in Custer for the night. I took 85, 385, and 16 to get to Custer and got to ride through the Black Hills National Forest. There are some really nice twisty roads there, not as good as Deal's Gap, but still a lot of fun.

An excellent prime rib dinner capped off a great day. Tomorrow I'll be going to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

I didn't sleep well last night because I couldn't get comfortable, so morning came too soon. I did chicken out on riding back down the mountain so we borrowed a neighbor's trailer and hauled me down that way. Because of that I got started a little later than I wanted.

I made my way to Colorado Springs and stopped at The Garden of the Gods for lunch and pictures. Riding through the park was a lot of fun, but I think I will come back on a non holiday weekend because it was a little too congested to really take my time.

It was probably good that I couldn't take my time because between the late start and the sightseeing, I was seriously behind schedule. The 75 m.p.h. speed limit on I-25 did help me make up some time though. I got in to Douglas, WY at about 7:30 in the evening.