Well, we made it! We’re in Spearfish, South Dakota for the Sturgis Rally, (well, close) and it’s the calm before the storm. Extremely lucky to have good weather both legs of the trip and arrive the same way every year, tired and sunburned.
On the first day, we checked in to our hotel at 6:13pm, almost exactly 12 hours after we left Michigan. The pool felt fantastic on our sunburned skin, and we watched from the pool area the eerie red glow of the distant wind turbines that dotted the landscape as traffic on I-80. Halfway there.
The second day, somewhere south of Sioux Falls, we stopped to gas up and were slowly surrounded by 6 – 7 other riders as we hopped off the bikes. I must admit, scenes from Children of the Corn went through my head until I realized they were folks from the Christian Motorcyclist Association from Missouri. We chatted for a bit, and they offered to bless our bikes. We held hands and prayed before hitting the road again, passing them periodically throughout the day.
We arrived in Chamberlain, right on the Missouri River for our annual Dairy Queen meetup with my dear friend Maria. She mentioned that during rally week, all Chamberlain hotels and campgrounds are booked solid. Chamberlain is almost 300 miles east of Sturgis! Hold on to your doo rags, it’s shaping up to be epic!
Happily speeding along in the hot July sun, I was the lucky recipient of a bee or wasp right in the center of my throat. I’ve only been stung before once and the familiar, awful pain radiated out as I dug the stinger out with one hand and maintained speed with the other. Good thing I wasn’t yawning.
Soon after, though, familiar, bluish shapes took form on the horizon and my heart skipped. Bee sting all but forgotten, my beloved Black Hills came into view at mile marker 86. We were on the home stretch.
Near Wall, SD, Bill’s bike turned over 100k miles! Yes, we sang. Well, I did.
At approximately 8:30pm, again 12 hours after leaving Iowa, we rolled into Chris’ Campground in Spearfish to learn that we were the first bikes to check in for rally season.
Again the Bike Gods were on our side and the clouds opened up just as we finished putting the tarp on the tent. Dinner at Perkins, our favorite standby and our first fire is lit. It’s weirdly quiet, being the first ones here and look forward to the arrival of our friends.
The wind rustles through the trees and our tiny fire crackles as I tap this out on my tablet. It’s late, even for mountain time.
Until tomorrow!
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Awesome – enjoy the rally Kathleen.
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