The Last Time

Nov 2, 2018
Outside the Full Throttle Saloon, facing the rear of the main bar.

The NaBloPoMo prompt for Day 2 is Write about a last time that you didn’t know would be the last.

I took the above photo on Tuesday, July 28th, 2015 at 4:02 p.m. It would be the last photo I would ever take at the original Full Throttle Saloon on Highway 34 in Sturgis, South Dakota.

If you follow my blog, you know that Bill and I ride out to Sturgis every year for the rally. The Full Throttle was always one of our stops, and though we never experienced the craziness of being there at night, we got our fill of the atmosphere during the day. There was so much to see! Multi level outdoor decks, bars, people ziplining from one end to the other, and huge train trestles you could walk on and take in the view from up above. Our last trip would be during the 75th annual rally, well, before the rally, actually. In 2015, we went two weeks early to avoid the massive turnout that was expected for the milestone year. So technically, this photo was taken before the actual rally started. I’m glad we did go early, as I heard stories of hours long waits at gas stations, and gridlocked traffic, people sitting on their overheating bikes in the hot sun.

So we went to visit the Throttle during the calmer days, and smaller crowds. And 40 days later, on September 8th, this famous biker bar burned to the ground. Main bar, stage, many outbuildings, decks, the buses, tractor trailers, all the iconic signs, gone. The office and the cabins survived.

After the fire, I wrote a post, A Farewell to FTS, which includes more photos I took over the years. We returned in 2016 to the original site, where they had set up a beer tent and t-shirt sales. We walked somberly through the ruins, still in disbelief that one of our beloved landmarks was gone. The good news is, of course, that no one was hurt, and now in 2018, they’ve rebuilt on the site of the Broken Spoke, just up Highway 79. It’s huge, it’s very, very cool, but it will never be the same, not that I expected it to be.

This is why I take photos. Of seemingly unimportant things, even. Because you never know when that photo might be the last.

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