Headed for Mt. Rushmore

[Ol'Joe]

Hi Marco,
We left out of Virginia Beach on the 3rd of July. Took US 64 to Charleston, WV then US 35 towards Dayton in order to do the 4th celebration in a little town called Point Pleasant. Sandstone Mt. going into WV was more of a pull than I expected with a 3800 lb toad and I crawled up it to the peak. Going Down was not bad at all I geared down and tapped the brakes occasionally and kept a safe 55-60 all the way down. Had no other real mountain roads until we headed up to Deadwood, SD. Used US 70, 74, 29 and 90 mostly. Going up to 4000 ft are soft. easy and gradual on 90. On US 14a the last 1k was also a slow crawl but no real strain on the engine as long as you remember you can't do 55 uphill. Between 25-40. I prefer to keep her out of overdrive going up and feather the power to keep it about 3500 rpm. The first couple of pulls make you wonder about hurting the motor but you soon find the comfort zone and everthing is easy. As for going down I keep it SLOW from the top down. The roads out here are in great shape with climbing lanes where needed and warnings about grades in plenty of time to allow for them. By the time I got on the US 85 roller coaster from Deadwood to Hill City I felt pretty good about my Mt. driving abilities but my highest evevation was only approx. 6000 ft. I know the area on US 26 your talking about and would say I haven't found any worse out here to date. Headed out of here in a couple of days for the plains of NB and KS so it's mostly downhill from here on. Good Luck and be safe.

[ErWeGO]

Thanks! Happy trails good Sir!

MarcO