I woke up and popped my head out of my sleeping bag and the crisp morning air smacked me in the face. RJ was still cocooned in his sleeping bag, fast asleep. I reluctantly got out of my warm bag and starting packing up.

We headed out of Wyoming and into South Dakota towards the Black Hills.

To both of our mothers: please just skip this next paragraph. Everything was going well until RJ got a little excited about the windy, hilly road and we met a cop on a curve going into the Black Hills. RJ was accelerating pretty heavily while exiting a a blind corner and right as we see through the other side, we pass a sheriff in the oncoming traffic. The cop whipped his SUV around and his lights were on. RJ promptly shart himself. We pulled over right away. The sheriff was a clean cut younger man, and he walks over with his hands perched on his belt and asked us if we had any idea how fast we were going. RJ was slightly off on his guess… Because I know our mothers are not listening to me, I will not say how fast we were going or how fast (or slow) we were supposed to be going. The guy asked us where we were from and where we were heading. Then he asked us if we had any weed on our persons. Just because we’re from California doesn’t make us potheads, ok dude.

He walked back to his patrol car, ran RJ’s license and walked back over to us a couple minutes later. “Ok, here’s what I’m gonna do. Instead of giving you a $200 ticket, I’m gonna let you off with a warning. I know how much fun these hills are to ride through. Motorcyclists tell me all the time. But you’ve gotta slow down. A mile down the road you can go 65mph.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Now, I’m going to ask you one more time. Do either of you have any marijuana or pipes on your person?”
“No, sir. We’ve never smoked in our lives. Our bike is our drug.”

The cop laughed and told us to have a great day. Taking off down the road again RJ breathed a sigh of relief and said, “That dude rocked. I’m getting his name tattooed on my left butt cheek.”

We continued our journey in an uneventful fashion. Several hours later, we pulled into Rapid City, SD to a coffee shop where we worked until 6pm.

We went to the mall where we found The Sandwich Shoppe, a place the barista at the coffee shop recommended. There was a Taco Johns in the mall too, and RJ remembered a bill board saying that they were offering carnitas. Being a Garcia, he couldn’t pass up cheap carnitas tacos, so we ordered a Jalapeno Popper Panini from The Sandwich Shoppe, and then RJ went over to get a pair of tacos as well. Our sandwich was delicious, the tacos, good, but not amazing. RJ didn’t seem to mind though.

We drove another hour and a half into the Badlands where we set up camp for the night. The campsite manager told us to stake our tent and watch our things because it gets windy at night. She wasn’t joking! The winds came as soon as we had our tent set up. I put in earplugs and went to bed while RJ finished up some work.

Cheers!

     em and rj

~Up next: the Badlands and a candy store