Sturgis

Day 34 – Sturgis to Worthington, Minnesota

America 2014

We headed out of Sturgis this morning on Route 90 east. Our next stop is Worthington, Minnesota.

We rode through the “Badlands” in South Dakota.  It was pretty windy getting through there. When you are riding down the highway and the wind is coming from the side, you have to ride leaning heavily to the side, as you travel straight forward. It was kind of freaky.

Welcome to Minnesota 8-4_Minnesota-3

We never got off of Route 90 east.  We traveled 453 miles today.  Most of the ride was 80+ mph. We hit a few scattered raindrops, but nothing too bad.

sturgis to worthington

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Day 33 – A Down Day in Sturgis

America 2014

Our last day in Sturgis.  We didn’t really want to do a whole lot.  We’re pretty tired.  So we just hung out with some people at the hotel and washed our bikes.  We had some dinner over in Deadwood and called it an early night.  Only rode 10 miles today.  We needed a down day. We got it.

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Day 32 – Sturgis

America 2014

Sturgis is getting very crowded, so we grabbed some breakfast here in Deadwood, and headed in to Sturgis to be a part of it.  So cool!  So many bikes, so many people!

It is amazing to see how many different kinds of people there are, that gather together in one place.

After several hours of this, we decided to take a ride and look at the famous places around here that are associated with the Sturgis adventure.  “Full Throttle Saloon“, “The Beaver Bar“, “Buffalo Chip“.  We stayed on Route 34 east which turned into massive fields as far as the eye could see.

Eventually, headed back in to Sturgis for a while longer to watch all of the characters here.  Really cool.

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We only rode about 80 miles today. Fun day.

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Day 31 – Devil’s Tower

America 2014

Beautiful day for a ride, so we climbed on and headed west to see “Devil’s Tower”.  What a unique structure!  This is the one that was featured in the movie, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind“.  One of the park rangers told us that it was formed by a volcano tube that never reached the surface.  After time, all of the surrounding earth eroded away, which left this tower of rock behind.

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Native American folklore tells the story that there were a few young girls playing in the fields, when they saw a bear approaching.  They climbed on a rock and began to pray. All of a sudden, the rock started to grow into the sky so that the bear couldn’t reach them.  That would be the explanation for the vertical ‘scratches’ on the tower.

It was a great ride back to Sturgis.  We just walked around town, looking at people, bikes, vendors, etc.  We met a lot of people along the way.  Got back to our room late, but had a great day.

Rode about 180 miles today.

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Day 30 – Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Needles Highway

America 2014

We took our time waking up this morning.  We sat outside talking to some of the people staying here at the hotel.  We finally got ready to go around 10:30.

We headed down Route 385 to Mount Rushmore.  Another amazing man-made monument.  You just have to stand there and marvel at it.

Road Trip Harley Mount Rushmore

After Mount Rushmore, we headed down to Custer State Park. Here, the have what they call a “Wildlife Loop”. That is an understatement.  We ended up in the middle of a herd of wild buffalo.  That was just incredible!  There had to be at least 75-100 wild buffalo just walking around on the side of the road, in between cars and motorcycles all over the place.  Just amazing.

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Then, after that “Loop”, we headed up to the “Needle Highway“.  It suddenly started raining.  Out here, it’s not unusual for storms to just pop up on a moment’s notice. Anyway, the name, “Needle Highway”, is a little deceiving because it’s not a highway at all.  It’s a narrow, winding road through the mountains where the rock formations resemble needles that reach for the sky.  We couldn’t get any pictures because of the rain, but, again, just amazing! We went through tunnels that were just wide enough for 1 car, hairpin corners, and cliffs that would be too easy to fall off of.  Again, amazing!

We got totally soaked today, but had a great ride.

Rode 175 miles today.

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Day 29 – Main Street, Sturgis, South Dakota

America 2014

This morning, we woke up in Deadwood, South Dakota. We jumped on the bikes and headed over to Sturgis.  It’s 15 miles away, but the ride is all along the mountains and hills, in, out, around, up, down.  All good.

We got to Main Street, Sturgis and parked the bikes like hundreds of others did and just walked around looking at all the people, stores, displays, etc.

Sturgis - Road Trip

Sturgis - Road TripWe walked around for a few hours and decided to head over to Rapid City, Harley Davidson where they were having an open house of sports with about a hundred vendors, all bike-related. We spent a couple of hours there and headed back to Sturgis.

We parked the bikes again and went for another walk to look at people and do a little shopping.

In total, we drove another 105 miles today.

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Day 28 – Riverton, Wyoming to Deadwood, South Dakota

America 2014

So we looked at the weather and took a deep breath and away we went.  We weren’t out of Riverton 10 minutes when it started to rain.  Motorcycles, rain and open road with no place to hide is not an enjoyable experience. But we kept going.  We made it to Casper, Wyoming by noon so we decided to find a place for lunch and dry out a little. So we’re eating lunch and looking up the weather in the direction we were  going.  It wasn’t pretty. We traveled 65 mph in the rain for another 4 hours. Ouch!

We finally got through the weather and made it to the South Dakota border.

7-29_South-DakotaThe sun came out. The temperature got to 75º and the last hour of the ride was great, especially because there were hundreds of other bikes all heading in the same direction, to Sturgis!

We made it to the Black Hills Inn and off-loaded the bikes.

Today’s ride was pretty tiring, so we grabbed a bite to eat in downtown Deadwood and headed in to chill.

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Rode 364 miles today.

Riverton, Wyoming to Deadwood, South Dakota

Total 8,116 miles.

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