I’m sitting at the picnic table in front of our cabin as I write this, another clear sunny day. It’s 8am, and the sun is coming up in the east, as I picture a 10am Wednesday workday, back home. Ugh, scratch that thought.
It’s back to Perkins for breakfast, after wiping the morning dew off our bikes, and we find that we are one of two bikes in the parking lot. Rally week is over, and only a few riders are left in town. Since we’ve only been here during rally week in the past, it’s strange to see mostly cars in the parking lot and not the other way around. In the lobby of the restaurant, we are waiting to be seated when I’m approached by a very slowly moving old man. He’s holding a plastic plate of flattened bottle caps and says to me, “Would you like to try one of my freshly baked cookies?” I took one that had a sticker of a pirate on it, smiled and thanked him. He then showed me that there was a magnet on the back, and you could affix it to your shirt. Kind of weird, but very sweet. We were then seated, and I noticed the hostess was wearing one as well, as she brought us our menus. I smiled again to myself. Too cool. My journal, now rather tattered from being bounced around in my saddlebag for almost two weeks and full of scribbles from our adventures, has a magnetic closure, where I placed my new “cookie”. That’s where it will stay.
After breakfast, we headed to a much needed car wash, and then off to visit Dakota V-Twin in the hopes of an oil change, at least for Bill. They were closed, unfortunately, probably recovering from rally week. We continued on to spend another gorgeous day riding through the hills that we only dream of during the other 51 weeks of the year. Needles Highway was on my bucket list, and I was glad that I’d have this opportunity to ride Needles, NOT during rally week with all the traffic. I made it through with white knuckles, and we stopped for more breathtaking pictures along the way.
Coming back on 16/385 we passed the Black Hills Aerial Tours, a helicopter tour place and Bill put on his turn signal. Seriously? We stopped in to check it out, and decided to go ahead with a ride. The copter ride took us over the Black Hills to Crazy Horse and back, and I got some incredible shots with my DSLR from the air. From there we went on to explore downtown Sturgis, which was practically a ghost town. Almost all the vendors were gone, only the empty, white vinyl tents were left, several of those being dismantled by work crews. We’d often talked about coming to Sturgis not during Rally Week, and this was it. It was nice to be here not shoulder to shoulder and fender to fender, but walking down the empty Main Street also had a sad feeling to it. Sturgis Bike Week was over, not to return for another year. We hoped that everyone who attended was back home safe, and all the business owners were back home as well, counting their cash. 🙂
Huge piles of bald motorcycle tires lined one corner of Main Street, stacked up next to the road, the evidence of a lot of miles and/or a lot of burnouts. We walked down the empty sidewalks to Hot Leathers, one store that is open year round in Sturgis. I bought some Ryder Clips, these cool metal clips that attach to your pant leg and shoelace, to keep your pant legs from blowing up in the wind. Nice variety of designs, I chose the flames, made for lace up boots. These and few shirts later, we stopped in at the Knuckle Saloon for dinner before heading back to the campsite. Very cool place, tons of neon memorabilia covering the walls and stage. I couldn’t imagine what it was like trying to get a table here one week before! Almost to the end of dinner, we were approached by John Kinsman of Sturgis Rally Transport, a fly in, ride, fly out service that was just being launched and had a nice conversation about the rally itself, and our motorcycle travels, and his new venture. Though we’d missed the 2010 rally, we’d been to numerous others in past years and certainly plan to return.
Our trip is winding down, and we spend the evening at the campsite next to a crackling fire under the stars. I had my tripod out and was able to capture the glowing clouds in the night sky by playing with several settings on my DSLR, something I’d been meaning to get the hang of. That moment brought back a song from the 80s, “There’s a warm wind blowin, the stars are out…” I tried hard to hold on to this moment, and all the memories that were made these past two weeks.