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road continues higher , past a series of alpine lakes , dark blue against green . What can only be called tundra rises against a single stone peak . Unlike any road we ’ d traversed , this one holds nothing back . It takes us over the top , across a beautiful plateau . At 10,947 feet above sea level , one of the highest roads in America .
I think : The road has us and will not let go . My heart is somewhere outside my chest , my lungs have forgotten how to breathe . Once again , the earth falls away . We find ourselves on the edge of a narrow valley , a canyon a mile deep , filled with sunlight and haze . The road descends one side of that void , a series of switchbacks that are dizzying — although separating that feeling from the overall awe is difficult . Steel nets line the road to slow falling rocks . The BMW RT is a hawk , claws extended , in full plummet .
When we reach the valley floor a moose , black coated with golden-brown antlers , lopes alongside the road , keeping pace .
That night we celebrate with an elk and trout dinner at the Carbon County Steak House , essentially , wonderfully whipped . Lesson : Know when the trip is over .
The next morning we chip ice off the bikes and head home . The cold front creates a cleansed sky that will last two days .
Spearfish . The Badlands . Grassland turning to corn fields . Rows of plants packing heat , green holsters mid-stalk . Silos silver in the sun . Wind turbines as white as the future . Weird sculptures in the middle of wheat fields . A huge billboard advertising microsurgical vasectomy reversal ( such a large sign for such a small operation ?). A team of paragliders spiraling above a county airport . Crossing the Mississippi , recognizing the familiar .
Four thousand , six hundred , sixty-two miles . Wiser for each one . Home .