The Full Throttle Saloon & the Wildlife Loop

Sorry I didn’t make an entry last night, Folks, but I was just too whupped. After spending nine hours on the back of the bike in the hot sun and wind, there’s just not much starch left in you. So we call came back to camp, ate some dinner and I don’t think any of us were still awake for the 10 o’clock news.

Tuesday we spent up in Deadwood. Ole had to go see his hero, G. Gordon Liddy, who was broadcasting live from the Four Aces Saloon. After the broadcast we got to visit with him for a bit and have one of Ole’s books signed. The rest of the day was spent poking around Deadwood, putting a few dollars in the slot machines and, of course, coming home with nothing. But then you just have to consider it entertainment.

Tuesday night Ole got the bug to go over to the Full Throttle Saloon. The Full Throttle has the reputation for being the world’s biggest biker bar (Big Deal). It covers approximately 20 acres and has a variety of stages, vendors, burn out pits, and lots of bars. I refuse to go because the music is so loud you come out of there with a hearing deficiency. So Ole went with another couple who are camped next to us and with Dave and Karen’s daughter and Jeff, their next door neighbor. I stayed home and went to bed – party pooper, huh? Oh, well. The Full Throttle is my most unfavorite place here in Sturgis. But Ole took pictures and I’ll post them for you. I guess it got to be kind of a wild night over there, but then I think every night gets pretty wild. There were a bunch of women dancing on the bar having a wet t-shirt contest, which became a no-t-shirt contest and then one of them fell off the bar on top of Kerilynn. Knocked her to the ground, scratched her face and pulled one of her earrings out (ouch). Anyway, I guess Ole had had enough by 11:30 so he came home, and the rest arrived home quite a bit later. The only problem was that Ole didn’t come in to the RV until 2:30. He was sitting outside on the picnic table yakking with somebody. So needless to say he was just a bit on the peaked side yesterday from lack of sleep and a few too many beers, as were some of the others who didn’t come back until the wee hours.

So getting up early on Wednesday morning in preparation for our long ride of yesterday didn’t exactly fit into several people’s sleep schedule. We were finally on the road by 10:30 headed for the Wildlife Loop in the southern Black Hills. Because Karen was having some upper back issues she wanted to avoid the Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway. It’s very difficult to get to the Wild Life Loop from here without covering either of those roads, so we managed to find a couple of new routes that Ole and I had never been on before – little backwater roads that weren’t very well traveled, and they were beautiful. Iron Mountain Road is a fantastic bike ride full of pigtail bridges that were built by the WPA. The Needles Highway is another great ride full of switchbacks going up and down the mountain and at the top going through the eye of the needle, which is actually a tunnel that goes through a pinnacle of granite. We’ve been up there several times when vehicles that shouldn’t be up there have tried to get through the tunnel. At one point a motor home thought he was going to get through and managed to take off both side mirrors in the process. He really didn’t have a choice but to go through because there is nowhere to turn around for a vehicle that size. And of course, he thought all the warning signs on the way up the mountain were meant for somebody else, not him so he had to suffer the consequences.


The Wildlife Loop proved to be pretty lucrative in sighting wildlife. We barely got into the park and there was a large herd of buffalo right up close to the road, with a park ranger off to the side watching making sure that no stupid people tried to approach the huge animals. They can be very dangerous, particularly at this time of year because it’s rutting season. And of course there was a huge bull about 100 feet from the road peacefully watching over his harem. A few years ago a ranger told us there were several young bulls that totaled a Toyota. The young woman driving the car came across a herd that was slowly crossing the road going to the river for water late in the afternoon. She apparently was in a hurry for some reason and the buffalo weren’t moving fast enough to suit her. First she honked her horn to try to get them to move faster and of course they didn’t. Then she decided to bump one of them with her car to move him along. The young bull took offense to this, turned and rammed her car. Then several other young bulls joined in the game and started rolling her little Toyota over several times. They finally had had enough fun and continued on for their drink. They had totaled the car and terrified the woman who also had a young child in the car. Lesson to be learned; don’t poke a buffalo, you might regret it.

Not much farther down the road were the burros waiting for their treats. Ole always brings carrots along when we go to the Wildlife Loop. These critters get pretty aggressive when they find out you’ve got treats. One year Ole was carrying a bunch of carrots in his back pocket and one of the burros turned into a pick pocket and took the carrots right out of his pocket nipping his backside in the process.

The park was full of pronghorn antelope. At one point we had one that must have been extremely curious because she came walking up to us within a hundred feet and just stood there and stared.

And then the proverbial prairie dog, cute little critters that stand on top of their burrow and yip at you. There weren’t as many this year as in years past. It looked like the prairie dog town had suffered some flooding, as there were large rifts of black dirt that had washed from the side of the hill and apparently the water had filled the holes and drowned some of the prairie dogs out.

Today’s plan is to head for Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. If you’ve seen the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind you’ll know about Devil’s Tower. We’ll make the required stop at Aladdin, a little town with population of 15. The whole town is for sale for 1.5 million if you’re interested. Then a stop in Hulett before we hit Devil’s Tower. Hulett is quite a place, but I’ll fill you in on that in my next entry. Then back through Sundance, Wyoming and home. This will be another long day in the saddle, but we wanted to get these rides in before Kerilynn (Dave and Karen’s daughter) has to leave. She flies out tomorrow morning and has to report to Ft. Bragg for further training.

Ta Ta for Now - Lena