Advertisement
Published: August 16th 2009
Broken Spoke
An Icon at SturgisI am starting this blog while I am winging my way back to Sturgis, South Dakota, for the biggest motorcycle event in the USA.
Raewyn and I came to this event for the first time in 1990, for the 50th, and have been back 4 times, the last being in 2000, for the 60th
My Brother, Trapper, from a different Mother, that I first met up with when he was still living in North Carolina, but now lives in Lead, just outa Deadwood, with the love of his life, Hobby.
Deadwood is my kinda town, somehow I just seem to 'fit in'over there.
It only took a phone call from Trapper, a phone call to Hamish, my travel agent and one to the Qantas air points department and they confirmed that I had enough air points to get me to LA and back. Hamish did some searching and got me from LA to Rapid City and back to LA for NZ$700. What could a man do now, but GO!. I arranged to go for two weeks, the first week would be madness, with the Rally drawing in upwards of 80,000 bikers, the big majority would be Harley's. That left me with
Trapper and Hobby
Dodge Ram Truck is huge the other week to spend with Trapper and Hobby.
Well about now, String showed an interest in my next adventure, and as I found out later, he had a secret desire to experience the Sturgis Bike Rally. Next thing I know, he has agreed to be my 'Bitch', as at this time Trapper had organised a bike for me. Luckily, by the time we arrived, Trapper's son, Mark, had kindly offered his other bike for String to ride, so I sorta lost my 'Bitch'at that stage...
Some how, we both managed to arrive at Rapid City together, met by Trapper and Hobby, we then headed to Elk Creek Steak House, as you do........
Sturgis, South Dakota.
Day one and two…
Hýall, here I am in Lead, just outa Deadwood, South Dakota. It is 1.10am and our second night here. I had a great sleep last night as a catch up from the flight, but am now wide awake, while String is snoring away on the sofa in the lounge and I could not go back to sleep.
I met up with String, as arranged at the Delta terminal, but then the fun started as we had to
Powder Blue
Land Speed record holder get our boarding passes from the electronic booths. We had to slide our passports into the machine, along the bar code to get access, well I managed to get mine to work while String was having great frustration next to me. After I managed to work my way through the system while String was not connected yet, I produced my own boarding pass. We were now getting towards our final check in time, and suddenly String managed to get connected, so off we went to check in our luggage.
While we standing in line, we hear the sound system ‘ Paging Mr Grahame Irvine, please report to the ticketing counter, paging Mr Grahame Irvine….blah, blah, blah” So off he goes, arrives back in line a few minuets later with his PASSPORT, duh, he had left it in the ticketing machine!
I had bought a bottle of Southern Comfort for Trapper (and me) and had it in my cabin bag from Auckland, as it was no problem as far as the liquid thing was concerned internationally, but when I went to check onto our flight to Salt Lake City, they would not let me take it on board, well you
Up Spearfish Canyon
The film site of Dancing with Wolves can imagine the ‘Scene’ that I made, I WAS NOT HAPPY! It was more the principal than anything - in the end String offered to buy me a new bottle if we could just keep moving along! At that point I wished the girl a very happy time and hoped she enjoyed my bottle of Southern Comfort, at that point I put a headache curse on it and ‘moved along’. I will get over it sometime…
We got to Rapid City Airport without anymore hassles, and there was my long lost Brother standing there, not having changed a bit, after our very emotional reunion, I introduced String and we met Royette, from now on referred to as ‘Hobby’ (Hoh-bee). She turns out to be the sweetest little thing you could find, I just fell in love with her, she tucks under Trapper's armpit and is so sparkly.
We stopped at Elk Creek on the way and feasted on spare ribs and beer, as you do, just like the old days but even more fun!.
They have a new Dodge truck, he sold the Studebaker, but now has two hotrods, check out the photos.
We met with Mark yesterday,
Nice Indian
String having a wet dream... he looks good. He is married to a very small lady (Dwarf size) but she has been good for him, he has not touched a drop of alcohol for 8 years, He met her at church and they have a house together here in Lead. He has lent String his other bike, so String won’t have to be my ‘ Bitch’. I will ride Trappers Yamaha Ventura (Dresser), Hobby also has a bike, so we are all mobile, String is beside himself, he hopes he doesn’t wake up from this fabulous dream he is having!!
Tomorrow we will ride about, as there are already hundreds of mostly Harley’s in town and around.
E-mail and skype are going to be difficult, but I hope to send this from a motel in Deadwood, when we go there for breakfast in the morning, we met the owner at the casino bar where Trapper met and pursued Hobby, while having a beer or two,,,,
As you can see we are already having a great time and it really hasn’t started yet.
It is now 2.10 am, so will try and get some more sleep before the sun gets up.
Hi again,
Not as short as he seems
String is bigger than life here !! it is Tuesday evening here and a few days have passed since our last communication, things are not as wired out here as I thought. We have met up with a few of the old team from our past.
On Sunday we made plans to meet up with the others, from North/South Carolina, at the camp in Spearfish and went on into Wyoming and onto Devils Tower.
We took a few pickies with the Kiwi Rider and the Age. On the way back we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, and I had prawns wrapped in bacon, covered with cheese, all ''really good for you' stuff…..
Monday,
we were all to be grouped here at Trappers around 10.00am, well about 11.45 we pulled out, and headed down to Custer and were to visit Mt Rushmore, Needles Highway, Custer State Park and Crazy Horse Monument.
Well the reality is that to do all that we should have left about 8.00am.
So we rode around Mt Rushmore, there was too much security bullshit to get in, so we rode through Custer Park and they charged all bikers $6.00 to do (cars were free). As we were now running out
Honda Goldwing?
Quad bike, anyone? of time we went straight to Custer and another Mexican restaurant, called, The Mangy Moose, and had the worst bloody hamburger that I have ever had!! It was so bad the we took a photo of it. At this stage I assumed that it was a lunch stop and that we would eat later in the day. Well as the day ticked away and we rode on past Crazy Horse Monument and on towards Deadwood, at this stage I knew that dinner was not going to happen. We arrived at Trappers about 8.15pm, with that Trapper lit the outside fire, some other bikers arrived, the rest of our gang, that got split from us during the ride, arrived after a nice evening meal…String and I had some kettle fried chips, blue cheese and crackers, washed down with Southern Comfort and Miller Lite, respectively, finally crawling into bed around mid night.
Tuesday,
String and I decided we wanted to get into Sturgis around 9.00 am, along with Ronny, Vanessa, Arthur and René from North Carolina. So around 8.00 am we hit the road, grabbed a great breakfast on the way for $4.50 each and onto Sturgis. We had a great
Cool Bike/Car
These are prooving very popular time checking out the vendors. We had told Trapper that we would be back at their place about 1.00pm, as we were all going in the truck into Rapid City HD and onto the flat track racing.
We never got to the Civic Centre, where HOG and the new Harleys are, nor the new Cabbala’s store, nor Prairie Edge, so we will have to go back another day. We did mange to find a battery charger for String‘s camera, as he left his at home.
Trapper and Hobby took us to dinner and we ate a whole buffalo between us, washed down with Miller Lite, even 6 hrs later I can hardly move!!.
After we had stuffed ourselves we moved onto the flat track racing. It was great, they ran about 5 races and the sky darkened, lightning and thunder was all around us, so we made a bee line for the truck and just made it back in time as the heavens opened up. We stayed for another half hour hoping that the racing would resume, but there was no way that the track would dry out for the racing to continue, so we headed home and here I
Wild man
String in another life time... am catching up on this diary for you all. It’s now 11.30pm, I think I will try and down load some Buffalo and have a shower, before the morning arrives.
Wednesday,
dawned clear, so sipped coffee for a few hours, along with some cereal. Around 11.00am, Trapper, Mark, String and I rode off to Sturgis to check out more vendors and pretty girls, unfortunately not all the girls were pretty.
After a good healthy ? Lunch we, rode outa town a bit to the Kawasaki/BMW dealer and then rode out through the Vanoker Canyon. On the way back we called into Trevino’s, Ray remembered me, from 2000, as I bought my Elk skin vest from him, I am glad I bought it then, as they are selling for US$1500 now.
We returned to Deadwood, so String could do more shopping for his Petal. We grabbed a nice dinner at a casino, and returned to the camp fire, and sipped some Southern Comfort, while the sky put on a great lightning display, accompanied with rolling thunder, good Black Hills stuff.
The base campers here consist of Arthur, and Rene, Ronny and Vanessa, Mark and Little Bit, Rosco and String, along
Hail storm
After the hail with Trapper and Hobby.
Thursday,
today we will eventually get to breakfast down at the First Gold, then a muck around before heading back to Rapid City to check out the HOG site, Prairie Edge, Cabala’s and meet up with Charlie and Teresa for dinner at Elk Creek. Well here it is 11.00pm and I am ready for bed, after having breakfast down in Deadwood at 11.00am, meeting up with Joe and his son. After stuffing our selves with bacon, eggs, hash browns, French toast and maple syrup, we headed back to camp, as Trapper had to do something or other?
We finally headed for Rapid City at 1.45. As we had planned to leave by 12.00, I think we did pretty well, but I knew we would have to sacrifice something as we would run out of time to meet up with the rest of the gang at Elk Creek for dinner.
We went straight to The Prairie Edge and I bought a book, then around the corner to Tandy Leather and I bought a few leather sewing aids, including a good quality punch.
Next we were off to the biggest lolly shop of all, Cabalas, I got
Hail Storm
The hail was the size of a goose egg. pretty lost in there and had to be dragged out by String….even though I only bought a pair of deer skin gloves, consequently we missed the HOG thing at the Civic Centre, and drove directly to dinner, which was great food and company. We farewelled a few of the gang as they start their respective ordeals to get home, many driving non stop for up to 13hrs, dragging their massive motor homes with the bikes either loaded inside or on a trailer, this is a bloody big country.
Tomorrow is Strings last day here, so we will go back to Sturgis, via a beaver dam that we saw today.
I spotted a Burger King today with wi fi, so hope to get this away tomorrow.
Sturgis up Date #3.
Star date Monday the 10th.
Hi all, well it is 1.55 pm here and an absolutely beautiful Black Hills day, String must just about be at work, and here I am sitting in an oldie Worldly café in Spearfish, where I have had the best lunch I have ever had while over here, there was NOTHING fried in it whatsoever, I know you will find that hard to believe but
Off the beaten track
Taking the road least travelled it’s true! It was an actual sandwich, accompanied by a latte.
Trapper had some things to do so I washed the bike and of course had to take it out to dry it off, and here I am in Spearfish.
I rode Spearfish canyon via the Roughlock Falls, I continued past the falls, on a metal road and came upon the film site of Dancing with Wolves, stopped for a photo of course and continued up the valley, where there was a notice that the County does not maintain this road….funny, I never saw any other bikes up here?
Here is a recap of the past few days….
Friday.
Today String and I went into Sturgis, as he was still on a shopping mission. On the way we stopped at a little junky type place and it was here that I spotted a vest just for String, after a bit of pondering, he was the rightful owner, so we continued onto Sturgis as there was still a lot for us to see. We had to go back to the Indian Motorcycle display, because we wanted to, they are very desirable…….
As we headed back towards Deadwood, we could see
Hot Rod
One of Trappers toys these great black thunder clouds forming, I said to String that we best get moving, but would have to seek shelter if we ran into it.
Soon enough, the lightning was lighting up the sky, and we had a few huge blobs of water hit the screen, by now we were in the mountain, with nowhere to shelter. A few moments later, I thought someone had thrown a rock and hit my helmet!, then another, and another, bloody hell they were Hailstones the size of golf balls. I copped one on my right thumb, my left shoulder and my thigh, the bruising is still there! It was lucky that I had my elk skin vest on, as that is pretty thick leather. String only had his acerbis shirt on, but he has much more body padding that me, even though, we were grateful for our helmets.
At this point we knew we had to seek shelter, but where? just then I saw a driveway to our right, so rode up under some trees, where we came across two other bikers, who were not wearing helmets, but were sporting big bleeding lumps on their heads. We parked the bikes under the
Hot Rod
Another of trappers toys, the car is cool too. shelter of the trees, as best we could, and found a tree for us also.
These were the biggest hail stones I had ever seen in my life, they were ripping leaves and branches off the trees around us. We eventually made a run for the owners garage, and got under the eáves. What an experience this was!
When it passed and we went back to the bikes, I was so sure the tank would be full of dents, but we were lucky, as my (Trapper's) bike only had two small dents in the front mud guard. The temperature had dropped way below 10c so we had a bloody cold ride back to camp, lucky I had my jacket in the pannier, and String had body padding, he didn’t want to wear his new vest in case it rained again!
We were bloody happy to get home and out of our wet gear.
Saturday,
we were up early to get String to the airport, we got there in plenty of time, so had breakfast at the airport, hugged him goodbye and came back to camp. On the way we saw many vehicles with broken windscreens, and people on top
Rambo?
String with a hand made 'Rambo Gun' of their motor homes, repairing damage from yesterday's hail storm.
Sunday.
Was a day of rest, as most campers began heading for home, we woke to thunder and lightning along with heavy rain so I turned over and got a bit more shut eye. We finally got moving around 3.00 pm down to Lewies Bar for lunch/dinner, and to farewell Charlie and Teresa, as they were heading back to North Carolina.
When we got back to camp, I decided to head into Sturgis for the bargain T shirts, I paid upwards of $20 for a couple that I got early on, but now had to pay $5.00 only, so was worth the trip to town.
I took a photo of Main Street at 7.00pm and it was mostly cars, a few bikes and the odd person, what a transformation.
Tuesday.
Was quiet in down town Sturgis, as most stall holders had packed up and moved on.
We had to call on the local Yamaha/BMW dealer, as I had ordered a pair of Yamaha (Star) riding pants, that are made with an open mesh type material, with an internal water proof liner as per my BMW pants, but with
Sturgis 2009
Main Street, Sturgis more ‘ball room‘….just what I need for the High Andes and the up coming TAT next August.
We continued on into Rapid City as I needed to go back to Cabalas. This is such a boys' lolly shop, I picked a pair of lined trousers, a compression bag, a compass/watch/temperature gizmo and a couple of things for the grand kids…
We had a nice meal on the way back to Deadwood.
I heard a rumour that String misplaced his camera during his cheap flight stop over in Sydney, funny how things have a way of levelling out the playing field…..what he saved on air fares he can now buy a new camera, luckily I had down loaded most of his photos before he left.
Wednesday,
The last full day, so I took the bike out and rode down to Moonshine Gulch and generally just cruised around the Black hills , basically on my own, with very little other traffic…JUST GREAT.
That night, I think Trapper and I consumed another cow at the ‘ No Bull’ restaurant in Spearfish.
Thursday,
Up at 6.30 am and off to Rapid City Airport for the long drag home…..What a great holiday and
Shopping
String with the shopping urge (for Petal) what great people I met along the way….Big thanks and Hugs to Trapper and Hobby for their hospitality……
Until next time,
Rosco.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 16; qc: 30; dbt: 0.038s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rob
non-member comment
We were in the USA too!
Rosco, Sounds and looks like you had a great time. Helen and I just got back to Houston after touring the central mid-west since the beginning of July in our GMC Motorhome. She heads home on Tuesday but I'm hanging around to make some improvements in it until the end of September. Next year our north / south loop out of Houston will move a bit further. Might make it as far west as Sturgis. That's always a hoot! All the best, Rob