August 12th
07:30
Cruising The Black Hills
160 Miles

	When I got to the park I pulled up, paid my entrance fee and parked in lot 4. I walked up to the entrance and in. One thing I was looking for was a diet coke. I took a couple of pictures. There was a tour that took you up to the foot of the monument but I wasn't really interested. The monument was pretty cool if you ignore the destruction required to create it.
	I headed over to the snack bar but it was packed. I slid by the hucksters who wanted to take your picture with your camera and a tip. Tourist traps everywhere.
	I boogied out after finding a soda machine and headed south on Iron Mountain Road (16A). It was nice and twisty. There were a couple of wooden bridges that you went under and then did a tight turn up around so that you went over the bridge. There were a couple of short tunnels and then a long one. There was a sport biker in front of the van who was in front of me. He blew by the first van on a double yellow. The van in front of me was nice enough to pull over and let me go by so that was cool. The idiot in the first van tried to get me to pass on a double yellow switchback approach. I shook that one off. I'm not on a sport bike and certainly not _that_ stupid.
	At the long tunnel there were lots of people at the other end taking video shots and pictures. That was a bit odd.
	I continued on down to the entrance to Custer State Park. I stopped to pay the permit fee but the lady said that since I was just driving through and not using any of their services I didn't need to pay the fee. Odd but I continued on.
	At the junction of Rt 87 South as I was curving around to the left I nearly got my bell rung by a van with an extended mirror. Fortunately I was riding more towards the right side of the lane instead of the left and he just missed me.
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