Custer, SD

Today’s agenda was simple: See Mt Rushmore http://www.nps.gov/moru/ and choose from many twisty roads to get there.  There were many slippery 15mph hairpin turns, one lane tunnels, and even two pigtail bridges.  Lunch was in Keystone where they had filmed North by Northwest.  The waitress at the pizza joint there told us that Nicholas Cage had supped there recently for the National Treasure sequel.  She also said that the café where Alfred Hitchcock had done his filming had already been torn down to be replaced by bigger and “better” buildings.

After dodging deer on the way back to Custer, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up comestibles and beer for the STn grilling event.  Stashing the purchases into the cabin’s fridge, I decided to test the casher’s coffee recommendations since the resort’s coffee was simply brown colored water.  Mary was on the back looking for the café and pointed at CoffeeWorks as we went by.  Looping around, Dave then discovered that CoffeeWorks was closed with no explanation.  After asking another tourist in a Sidewalk Callout, they pointed out Banks Coffee across the street which also masquerades as Steak-n-Ribs Place located in the town’s original bank building.  It would be the only place in town with Starbucks coffee, a necessary infusion for a Seattle native.  Walking out with a quad Americano, we settled down for some outdoor bench racing when General Custer walked by.  It turns out that we had excellent timing since the shop closed at 4:30pm.  Several people saw the Starbucks coffee and were quite angry to find the doors locked.

The barbeque that evening was a great festivity for eatin’ and drinkin’ with many friendly people.  Andrew/ZX11Andrew (to be FJRAndrew) organized the raffle and made sure everybody had at ticket.  Mary won a copy of Faster, but since she already has Faster and Faster2, it was offered up to another STn’er who did not have a copy.  Twist won a toy bike for a performance award received on the trip there.  Dave won an Aerostich t-shirt with the gas pump shooting its head.  Camaraderie with like-minded folk who enjoy riding and sharing stories makes this trip to my first STn national well-worth the time.