Goats in The Tunnel

The roar of the engines is almost deafening as we rumble down the tarmac at over 150 miles-per-hour. Within a few seconds we are gently lifted. I can hear and feel the landing gear retract and lock. The pilot banks into a turn heading us toward our destination. Wow, I try to imagine just what the Wright brothers would say.
Leveling off at just under five miles of altitude I begin to imagine just what those first few flights were like.
December fourteenth, 1903. A strip of beach called “Kitty Hawk” in North Carolina was chosen for the test flight due to its wind, seclusion, and soft sand to land on.
With Wilbur at the controls the Wright Flyer, or Flyer 1, did indeed leave the launch rails. However, Wilbur pulled up too quickly and stalled the rickety aircraft at just three and a half seconds of flight causing minor damage. Three days later they would try again and succeed with four flights total that day. The longest of the four would be 852 feet. The shortest, and also the first, being about as long as the wing I overlook at 120 feet. What would their thoughts be and what would they say if they could board the jet I now fly in?
The year of 1903 was also a first for another mechanical wonder. Three brothers, William, Arthur, and Walter Davidson, along with William Harley formed Harley-Davidson Inc.
Cruising at over 500 miles-per-hour I watch the ground below pass by. Mountains, plains, and vast acres of crops all give way and disappear to our destination of Sturgis, South Dakota.
Sturgis, South Dakota, or simply “Sturgis” as it is known to all who ride a motorcycle, trike, or some abomination of the afore mentioned, is the true Mecca and sacred destination of those that practice two wheeled freedom.
It was the year 2007 when Judy and I made our first pilgrimage to the sacred and holy lands that lay nestled in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the experience lived in our memory until our second excursion came to us quite by chance and bad luck.
I was dutifully mowing the lawn sometime in late June 2019, or perhaps it was a day or two preceding the anniversary of our independence as a nation, when I heard the most horrendous squealing and grinding coming from underneath the mowing deck. A quick check confirmed my dread and thoughts as to the cause of the noise. A blade spindle had worn out and the pully shaft was eroding the housing of the spindle away.
Looking around my yard and realizing that if I don’t get the yard mowed today, I would have to finish it on the weekend and that would erode into my time on the bike and on the road. “That just ain’t gunn’a happen!” I told myself, and I finished the yard pushing the terminal spindle passed its limit and the limits of safety.
A day or so later I put the expired spindle in my saddle bag and rode to the local lawn and power equipment dealer and repair shop. The owners are a husband and wife team who happen to be friends of Judy and myself.
I walked up to the busy counter and showed the employee there just what I needed. After I exchanged some small talk with the employee, Brad the co-owner, was helping another customer and turned to me and ask that I “stick around” as he had a proposition for me. We both finished up our business and retreated into Brad’s office.
Brad inquired as to what Judy and I were doing the last week of July. I told him that we are planning a motorcycle trip. Brad asked where we were going, and I responded in my usual “Wherever we end up.” And that we made no firm plans as to direction yet.
“Perfect!” was his response, and going on to explain, Brad informed me that he and his wife, Kim, had just procured a “toy hauler” and was planning on making the pilgrimage to Sturgis, hauling their bike out in the back of the trailer and would we (Judy and I) be interested in going.
(A “toy hauler” is a large trailer or large mobile RV with living quarters in the front and a garage in the rear.)
In a, somewhat, stunned stupor, I told Brad that I would talk it over with Judy and get back to him as soon as possible.
The following day I informed Brad that “We’re in!” and we began to make plans and provisions with only a couple weeks to spare.
Now, the last week of July isn’t the official week of the Sturgis rally. That would be the following week. The week preceding the rally would still find all roads, highways and campgrounds filled with bikers and their machines. But not to the overwhelming extent of what we experienced twelve years prior.
Due to time restraints and schedules, Brad and wife Kim, would tow the toy hauler, loaded with all our clothes, gear, and bikes, out to Sturgis in two days and Judy and I would fly out with little personal items and no luggage. Once there, we would ride as much as weather permitted during the six days there.
(There are those bikers that decry and bemoan the fact that we trailered our motorcycles. There are those that would accuse us of blasphemy against the gods of two wheels for towing what was meant to be ridden. I say to them, and all, that I have nothing to prove. This is my third year of ridding 10,000 miles a summer on my machine. How many miles did you ride last summer let alone the last three summers?)
All went well and according to plans when our taxi dropped us off in front of Brad and Kim’s camp. It was the same campground as we had used twelve years ago.
For the next five days we rode and took in as many sites as we possibly could. On the one day it rained a steam train ride from Hill City to the town of Keystone kept the four of us amused, amazed and delighted.
We rode over 1000 miles in those five days. Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, Needles Highway, Sturgis, Crazy Horse, and Custer State Park are just a few of the roads we traveled and sights we saw.
The mountains and scenery in the Black Hills are beyond what description could justify. Rocky hills and mountains covered with Pondarosa Pine, Paper Birch, Quaking Aspen, White Spruce and Bur Oak are the most prevalent and as we rode through those awe-inspiring forests, we could feel the presents of The Keepers of those beautiful surroundings.
Out of all the miles in those six days two instances of comedy, fear, and awe will stick with us for all our years to come.
It was on our last full day when we decided to ride through Custer National Park. There is a large heard of wild bison that live and roam the park at will. We were about halfway through the park when we came upon the huge beasts. We were on our bikes with traffic stopped both forward and aft of us. It was there, in the open, that we sat. The “buffalo” leisurely walked around all the vehicles that had stopped. Including the four of us on our two motorcycles. Being fully aware of their size, they walked in and out of traffic and between us in no hurry. We sat there on our bikes froze to the seat and I with a death grip on the handlebars.
A gigantic male, with a head as large as a small car, decided he was going to check the two rumbling machines out. He looked us up and down licking his chops and was close enough we could smell him. They do not smell good! If he were to nudge us, even in a friendly manner, we would end up in a bad way. As he was looking us over and snorting, we saw the car ahead of Brad and Kim was being checked over by another male which began licking the windshield and panicking the occupants. If the driver panics and backs up, we would be run over by the car and perhaps the ensuing stampede.
The car started to back up. Neither caring nor aware of our position behind them. We could do little but try to roll our bikes backwards under the watchful eye of the huge male by our side just feet away.
Finally, just feet before being crushed between two cars, the driver of the car ahead of us made a slow break for it and worked around a few of the roaming heard. That left a gap for the four of us to ride around the heard standing in the road and make our escape also.
Another incident of comedic folly occurred a day or so prior to the roaming buffalo.
We were ridding on the Needles Highway. This road travels around the mountains surrounding Mount Rushmore and is famous for its curves and turns and the many “180” degree switchbacks. It’s also known for the tunnels cut and carved through solid rock. It was on one of these tunnels that Judy and I experienced an encounter with wild mountain goats.
These tunnels are only one lane so one must rely on the curtesy of the other drivers for a turn through them. It was one such tunnel that Judy spotted a goat standing high above the tunnel watching while the heard below was licking the sides of the tunnel drinking the mineral rich water running off the walls.
Brad and Kim made their way through the tunnel just before five of the goats decided to run into the tunnel ahead of Judy and I and slowly lick their way to the other end.
Even though these are cute and cuddly creatures, they are wild and unpredictable. A rule that escapes or is ignored by far too many that visit the park. So, as we enter the tunnel there is now a string of cars behind us carrying the people safely inside, impatient and ignorant.
We were creeping our bike along behind the thirsty goats. If I were to spook them, they may charge because now there is a mass of ignorant people closing the other end of the tunnel taking pictures! Slowly, very slowly, I push the goats towards the human fence at the end of the tunnel. If one or more of them get hurt by a scared and charging goat, I could not care less. I have more sympathy for animal than ignorant humans trying to get a picture of the cute and pretty goats.
By now we are about halfway into the tunnel and the goats are still drinking heavily of the tunnel wall water. I’m lightly revving my motor in an attempt to move the goats along. A blast from my horn might spook them.
By now the car behind me had a kid of about pre-teen years hanging out the rear window yelling at me to “Come on, you can do it.” I would have loved to have gotten off my bike and told the parents of that kid about respect and given them a lesson in animal behavior. But, by then, we were just about out of the tunnel when the goats ran towards the crowd scattering them in delightful panic as I rode passed them and chuckled.