A few weeks ago Cory messaged me and asked if I wanted to attend a wedding reception with him in Alexandria, Minnesota, then head west the next morning to explore the Badlands. Does a bear sh.... Yes, yes I did.
What follows is a friendship story. Skip to the chorus if you just want the trip report.
Cory is a former upperclassman of mine, so we have a connection from way back. We didn't reconnect until about 2015, though, at an event held by mutual friends. In another twist he ended up working at the same company I was at. We clicked, and over the years since we've shared many campgrounds and other interesting settings with our families and friends.
He wasn't a motorcyclist during those years, though. He'd done some casual riding, and had... an incident, and so he quit riding many years ago. Occasional conversations about bikes and trips got him thinking, and he ended up picking up a Himalayan 411. Then another one--the 450.
We talked a lot about protective gear and road strategy. He put time into study and skills practice, so last fall we did some riding around his home in Duluth, then we took a camping trip to Copper Harbor in Michigan, spending four days exploring back roads and hanging our hammocks in some beautiful forest areas. The roads near Copper Harbor are riding bliss.
A few weeks ago he messaged me and asked if I wanted to attend a wedding reception with him in Alexandria, Minnesota, then head west the next morning to explore the Badlands. Does a bear sh.... Yes, yes I did. He ended up skipping the reception due to work committments, but we kept our overall plan and set out on a fresh Saturday morning on the last day of May, 2026.
Day One
St. Cloud to Oahe Downstream Recreation Area - About 375 miles of pavement
We set out down Highway 23, which is actually fairly scenic to the west. Since we had a long road ahead we weren't concerned about getting off the major byways yet, and traffic was light early in the day. An hour later we were far enough from larger cities so that traffic stayed light. By 10:30 or so we approached Watertown, South Dakota, and were looking for a hot meal. A few miles out we pulled off to don our rain gear, just as a shower hit. In town we found a nice looking taco shop and pulled in just as the rain intensified. We shivered, damp from the first of the rain, in an over-cooled newer restaurant, enjoying our southwest brunch.
We moved on, stopping to stretch and strip layers as the day warmed up and dried out. It was a pleasant ride with lots of good conversation, with late afternoon bringing us to one of the few camping areas in South Dakota with trees suitable for our hammocks. We claimed a site, then ran back into town for some supplies and supper fixings. I waded into the reservoir to cool off from the sunny afternoon, planning to take a dip but deciding better of it. Cory took another approach, with a full-on body flop, followed by exhilarated gasping as he discovered for himself what snowmelt feels like out west, even on the brink of June. A peaceful evening in the hush of a light breeze through the cottonwoods brought us to comforable sleep and thoughts of a fun ride ahead.
Day Two
Oahe Downstream Recreation Area to Center Lake Campground via Badlands National Park - About 225 miles of pavement and gravel
The cottonwood grove we slept among was highly regarded by the local bird population. I counted at least ten species by ear the evening before, and this morning they woke us with a caucophony at a ridiculous hour. After hitting my internal snooze button a few times I got up and started coffee. Cory shortly followed. We're pretty efficient campers, so after coffee and snacks we were ready to hit the road.
Today was our Badlands day, and we started out with a 45 mile gravel jaunt on Bad River Road and beyond. Cory was still getting the feel for his new Himalayan 450, which was a bit less nimble than the old-school 411 he had prior. We paused for photos, then set out with purpose.
I was behind at this point, having stepped off the bike for a video clip of him, and followed at about 400 yards when something happend that my mind struggled to interpret. There ahead of me, tiny at that distance, I thought I saw Cory's bike go sideways to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. At the extremity of my visual resulution it was a motorcycle icon graphic flipping direction at one second intervals, like some sort of 1998 computer animation in 8 bits. Cory said nothing in the live intercom mic he wore.
I kept riding, intending to catch up and inquire what had happened, when I came across the place his moment had occurred. There in the gravel I saw five neat commas in the road, each curving the opposite direction from the last. Now it made sense. He'd gotten into a front-end wobble. By now he started offering a bit of commentary on the event, explaining just what I'd imagined, that he'd dug in and done his best to use good technique, but with inexperience and a bit of panic muddling the effort.
Anyway, he was ok, and the bike was ok. We kept on, eventually coming upon a grading crew who warned us of a big pile up ahead. Apparently they didn't recognize our bikes as the moderately capable off-roaders they are and thought it'd be a show-stopper for us. It wasn't a big deal, and half an hour later we were gassing up along a remote highway and settling into a couple juicy burgers at the attached diner. The station clerk did the cooking, and we enjoyed a fascinating conversation from a long-time local sipping a bottle of Bud at 10:30 a.m.
Cory had never been to Wall Drug, so we made a stop there since it was mostly en route.
Not long after Wall Drug we arrived at the edge of Badlands National Park. We made our way through the ticket gate and headed southwest. Shortly we were on gravel again, but this time it was firmer as Cory worked on regaining his mojo. He got to see his first Badlands bison there.
Once west of the park we paused to plan our route to the Black Hills. We stopped at a would-be ghost town strip mall with broken benches and dilapidated wood siding. We snacked and relaxed. Cory checked out the defunct jailhouse. Then we headed toward Rapid City and took part of the Needles Highway to our intended campground.
The ride into the hills was tight and thrilling. I hadn't seen the tunnels on my last trip in 2023, and they added to our enjoyment. The campground was full, so we reluctantly moved on to the next one, about 20 miles further. Central Lake Campground was a forest of mature red pines with virtually no understory to offer seclusion and sound buffering, but there were few other campers. We chuckled at a pair of tots on tiny bicycles screaming (in both senses of the word) down the campground road, sometimes into the woods when braking proved inadequate. Gentle rain overnight left the hills fresh in the morning, where sunshine urged through the remaining clouds.
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