Sturgis on a Harley (Day 2)

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We rose feeling slightly better than when we had gone to bed, after 14 hours in the saddle!!!!, and set off to visit a friend of Wolf's who he had met in a gas station the previous year and had put him up for the night in Three Forks.
It turned out that he and his wife had already left to go to Sturgis two days before, but another guy was there that had met Wolf before and he very kindly gave us breakfast. We left an hour later after having been fed eggs and cherries.
More miles to cover with the awsome scenery and the chance to enter the state of Wyoming. The road was beckoning.
The Interstate has mileage markers that count up or down depending on which way you are going. Leaving North Bend they go up then start again from zero in every other state that we went through. Coming back was going to be interesting as the last marker in Montana is 559!!!
The plan for the day was to go to Little bighorn to see Custers last stand then get to the buffalo chip camp site in Sturgis before the last band finished at midnight. We achieved the first...............
For those of you who are not aware Little Big Horn is where the native americans (red indians) whooped Custer butt.
I will say that when you get there you start to get a lot more respect for the fools, sorry adventurers who went there. It is a huge expanse of nothingness. I am so glad that there is now tarmac and iron horses to arrive there. There is no way you would have got me to ride it on a real horse.
Custer was a hero from the civil war with the belief that he could become president. From what I read he was out numbered on the hill by at least 10 to 1. To his credit he told the indian scouts to get out and leave the cavalry there. After talking to people it would appear there are very mixed views on what happened, some belive that they took their own lives. Standing on a small hill with 150 men surrounded by at least 2000 red indians you can sort of believe that they might.
You can understand that the red indians would be upset due to the fact that the settlers kept pushing them westwards, making and constantly breaking treaties about land. The settlers had agreed to let the native americans keep the area until it was discovered that there was gold there. Unsurprising that greed took over yet again............
Off we went again on the I90, I was starting to excited about sturgis as we had less than 300 miles to go. By the middle of the afternoon I was leading and struggling to keep my eyes open. I pulled off the Interstate as soon as I saw a gas sign. Scott was ok but Wolf was glad that I had as he was in the same situation. We fiiled our gas tanks and then stopped at the nearest bar to eat burgers and drink more coffee than is probably healthy...
We spoke to a cattle rancher in the bar who told us that when you start to go east out of Buffalo in the dark the deer start to like running in to the road more.....
After an hour or so propping our eye lids open with match sticks off we went again. I think we were in Wyoming by this point but was so focused on riding I couldn't really see anything other than the road.
One thing I haven't mentioned is the amount of adverts and buildings painted with nasty off putting pictures about meth. It is obviously a big problem out there in the middle of nowhere, you can sort of see why. There is probably not a lot to keep the youth of today occupied other than sex and cow pushing or combining both???????????!!!!!!!!!!
We arrived in Sturgis at 10 ish then spent about an hour to ride through the traffic to get to the otherside to go to the legendary Buffallo Chip.
We had arrived after 1150 miles and more sugar and caffine than I had consumed ever before. Putting up a tent I had never seen before in the dark was some what entertaining, more so for Scott and Wolf who kept giggling a lot at me.
Time for a beer in the arena me thinks.............

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Photos

Scott & Wolf
Taking a well earned break

Little Big Horn Battle field
The black on white head stone is Custers

Wolf
In His new banjo hat

Comments

[anonymous]

great history lesson.... cheers Russ!!! ;)