Heart Land

I realized tonight, amidst the fireflies, and the sunset dimly painting the distant clouds against the quickly fading blue light, that I’m conflicted about this whole business of photos, blogging, trying to collect my thoughts this way. In some way, it makes feel grounded, journaling my thoughts every night, but on the other hand, I feel much less mindful than if this was a purely analog trip. For instance, I’m sitting in front of my fire, I can hear crickets in the distance. The lake is calmly behind me—this is paradise to me. And yet, my laptop is on my lap, and I’m typing away. I’m going to give myself permission to feel this out and maybe change the game. I brought a journal and a pen, maybe I just do that until after the trip. It would be much easier to write down my thoughts throughout the day as well. So much happens, I almost forget what I want to say by the time the night comes.

South Dakota, man. Five stars. My day started out by heading south to Crazy Horse Memorial, where they are currently carving a huge—HUGE—sculpture of Crazy Horse, on his horse, pointing into the distance. “Where is my land? My land is where the bodies of my dead lay” is the caption. I was surprisingly emotional there. Firstly, I was watching history being made. Someday, there will be a fully-sculpted monument in a mountain, and I was here to see it in the making. Secondly, the more I see of this country, the more I feel very intensely the connection the Native Americans must have felt and do feel for the land. History is full of tragedies, but it bears repeating: this was a tragedy. It gave me ta lot of feelings when I made it to Deadwood.

I am an alien, and this is a new planet. My Yamaha quietly carving a path through the mountains, I am an intruder. The God of Transport here is Chrome, and I am surrounded by his worshippers. Harleys gave other Harleys “the wave” but conspicuously skipped me. I was not a denizen of this place. My bike is not loud, and it has no Chrome.

America. Not the land of the Natives, but the America of today, is emblazoned into South Dakota like a cattle brand. You can feel it. There is no culture war here. The Land of the Free. The Home of the Brave. No helmets, because freedom. Actual freedom is not the point here—I’m free from worrying that if I wipe out I will scramble my brains—maximizing the visceral feeling of freedom, sometimes at a cost: that’s what it’s all about.

This is the heartland, though. Once you get past Sturgis, Mt. Rushmore (yes, I visited, got a picture, yawn), and the veneer of ‘Murica and begin to ride east, you see the real Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. I skipped the Interstate as much as possible and cut through real, actual farmland. Farmers were making hay bales. And don’t picture quaint farmers making quaint hay bales. We’re talking huge machines, making thousands of hay bales. Massive fields being worked. Cattle, horses, machines, buildings, grease, work, heart. It was green and lush and beautiful. 

But we can’t forget the Badlands. I am an alien, and this is a new planet. Shards of rock in angular, demonic columns jutting up from the earth for hundreds of miles, painted in, brown, green, yellow, white, and red, patterns. With the right music, you could hallucinate huge, spider-reptile hybrid creatures, scaling the landscape in fluid strides. And yet, cutting through and around this alien landscape are fields. More farmers. And roads that only meet the basic criteria.

Now Stormy is a “sport touring” motorcycle. 650 lbs without any luggage or rider, low to the ground and not much suspension travel. This motorcycle was created to feel like a sport bike in its power and agility, and yet return some creature comforts for the long haul. For most of this trip, Stormy has been a perfect companion: I would say the very ideal machine to carry out the task I’m carrying out. Except today.

Being insane, I wanted to take the non-standard roads around and through the Badlands, because I wanted to see them as raw as possible, and I didn’t want all the screaming kids and loud Harleys ruining my zen. So I turned up this particular road where on the map, looked like a fun, curvy slice through some of the national park. When I made the turn, however, I was met with heavy gravel and dirt. Surely, this was only for a few hundred yards until I meet pavement again.

10 miles. As my fate was setting in, I saw a plume of smoke in the distance, Mad Max style. Figuring this was the end and some huge truck was going to blast by me, throwing me and stormy into the red abyss, I pulled over and got ready to flag them down, just in case they didn’t have murder on their mind. Fortunately, I was met by an amazing Native American family in a suburban, farmers, who were making their way to town. I asked how much longer until l got road again, and they looked at each other. “It’s about 9 or 10 more miles, and uh, there’s not much traffic so be careful!” I thanked them and continued on.

I know why the builders of this road decided to do this, but it was a plague to me: they scalloped the surface perpendicular to the direction of travel. Great for huge trucks with huge wheels, but for me it was torture. Whenever the gravel gave way, my front tire would lose grip and I would fishtail down the road, give it some gas to unload the front tire. Then as I approached the terrifying speed of 25 mph, I would hit some skull-rattling scalloped road surface. My only recourse was to use the rear brake to come to a stop as quickly as possible and limp along at 5 - 10 mph until the hellish texture evened out. TEN MILES. If I was on the right bike, maybe it would have been fun? But a loaded up, 900 lb FJR? No. In other words, technically you can run a marathon in a tuxedo, but it will neither be fast nor fun.

The Badlands, however, were perhaps my favorite part of the trip. Once I did get road again, the epic ride through the terrain was inspiring. I thought I had AMAZING GoPro footage to share with you, but I then realized that I DIDN”T INSERT THE MEMORY CARD. Don’t you think it should beep like it’s having a seizure or something in that case? In what universe would it ever be ok to use your GoPro without a memory card? Anyway, I have some pictures.

I have more thoughts but it’s getting late and dark. I’m now in Central Time. My fire is dying, and I need to get into the tent, I think it might rain. Only a few more days until I see my mom and dad.