See Ya' Next Year, Sturgis

Well, the bike rally is over for another year. We had a wonderful time, very laid back and relaxing, but we’re both tired. The heat and the sun can really take it out of you.

We were out of the campground by 10:30 this morning, but it took over an hour to get from the east end of Sturgis to the west where we hooked up with the Interstate. We’re currently on our way back to Medora, ND to meet up with Lovely Daughter and Lars. I decided that it’s really time I give him a name other than The New Man because after all, they are officially engaged. I haven’t said much about that issue because I feel it’s her place to write about it and share what she feels comfortable with.

Anyway, they managed to get a couple of days off work and they’re bringing the grand doggers out to spend a long weekend with us. We’re curious to see how Daisy reacts to seeing Ole. Will she instantly forgive him for leaving her for a month and greet him with jumps and licks or will she turn away and punish him – “You left me and I’m still mad at you.” There’s no question as to what Beau will do. He’ll wear his tongue out trying to cover Ole from top to bottom.

So we’ll spend a few days with the kids and the doggers and then we really haven’t decided whether we’re going to head home or go a different direction. Neither of us is really ready to go home yet. The subject of Glacier Park came up in conversation, and just poking around western Montana for a while. I guess we’ll decide that when the kids leave on Tuesday.

The bike rally was definitely different this year. The counts were way down, which was very apparent by all the vacancy signs on the motels, vendor space available signs, only partially filled campgrounds, etc. Those are three things that you never see during the bike rally. Also, many of the motels were advertising their rooms for $49.95 instead of the $250 per night that they’ve charged in past years. Serves them right to not have filled their rooms.

We also greatly appreciated the fact that we didn’t have all the drama going on this year like last year. Jane and her entourage weren’t able to come this year and that’s what made it an especially good trip. Ole and I almost had a heart attack one morning though. Ole was sitting with his coffee looking out the front window of the RV and he saw a woman walking toward the shower house. He could have sworn it was Jane and called me to the window. From the back it looked like Jane’s twin, so he waited and watched for her to walk back again. At first glance it looked like Jane to me also – but after closer inspection I decided the woman wasn’t fat enough to be Jane. Whew!! Off the hook. As I told Ole, if it had been Jane, I’m sure she would have looked us up immediately upon setting foot on the campground.

Last year she and her entourage “shared” our campsite. We had tents and all their crap all over. They just took over the entire space. When we wanted to use our grille, it was busy cooking somebody else’s food. Our picnic table was always full of everybody else’s stuff, and our lawn chairs were always full of somebody else’s body. There was barely a blade of grass showing on our space because it was covered with all their shit. Now ask me if anybody offered to share in the $600 rental fee for the campsite? Hell, no!! They all stayed for free. If anybody asks to share our site next year, guess what the answer is going to be. A very definite HELL, NO!!

I’m going to have lots of diaries to catch up on when I get home. I haven’t read any since we got to Sturgis, simply because trying to do that through a cell phone gets pretty tedious. By the time I get my pictures and an entry uploaded, any email downloaded and answered, I’m ready to turn it all off. So I have no idea what’s been going on with any of you, but I certainly appreciate all the comments I’ve been getting. You guys are the greatest. I especially had to chuckle at a comment that Shear-Madnez made about a picture I posted of a chubby blonde woman that was hanging out of her orange/red top and little bloomer/skirt bottom. Shear said she looked like a tube of biscuits that had exploded! What a great analogy.

Anyway, time to sign off on this and see if I have cell phone service here so I can post this. We’re somewhere in the middle of nowhere in western South Dakota right now, heading north.

Love Lena

Devils Tower and No Panties Wednesday

Today started out bright and early at 9:30 and 86 degrees – promising to be a hot one before it ended. We accomplished our mission and were back in the campground by 6:30 p.m.

First stop was Aladdin, Wyoming, a little town just over the border. The whole town is for sale and it can be yours for a mere million and a half. It consists of a general store built in 1890, a 6-room motel, post office and a few trailer houses. Aladdin is always a stop on our agenda not only for a butt break but they’ve got ice cream there!!

Then it was on to Hulett where we did some shopping and managed to get a bite to eat. Hulett’s claim to fame is that Sturgis is where the Rally is, Hulett is where the party is. There are no rules in Hulett. At least that’s what the sign says. Wednesday of bike week is the big day for Hulett when they hold their famous/infamous Ham and Jam Day. They roast a number of pigs and there are free pork sandwiches for everyone. As I said, there are supposedly no rules – in Sturgis it’s against the law to drink on the streets, Hulett allows it. In Sturgis any form of nudity is against the law, Hulett allows it. The big party on Wednesday is known as No Panties Wednesday – I’ll leave the rest to your imagination. Enough said. If you want to know more you’ll have to go to Hulett on the Wednesday of Bike Week.

Then we visited Devil’s Tower – a somewhat spooky place that is actually the core of an old volcano. Remember the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind? If you haven’t seen it, shame on you. It’s a classic by now. Go watch it.

Then we got on our bikes and proceeded to ride behind a Nipco heater. It was only 110 degrees out by this time of day. We all drank so much water we sloshed by the time we got back to camp.

Our last stop was at Beulah, Wyoming, famous for their burn out contests. For those of you who don’t know, burnouts are racing your engine and spinning your back tire in place until it blows up. The one who lasts the longest wins. But what does he actually win? Possible damage to his bike and having to buy a new rear tire. Doesn’t sound to feasible to me, but then what do I know? Don’t ever stand behind someone doing a burn out because the rubber comes off in itty bitty pieces and lands all over you and in your hair and it smells. Also the smoke is awful and causes me to choke. Been there, saw that, don’t need to see it again.

So about the time we were all fried from the sun and the wind we arrived back in camp. It was toddy time and then time to eat. Tonight was Kerilynn’s last night with her parents so her mom cooked her favorite dinner and we all gorged.

As I sit here and type this I can hear the loud music coming from the concerts going on in the campground next door. I think ZZ Top is performing over there tonight with Tanya Tucker at the campground on the other side of that. You can hear the roar of all the Harleys on top of all the music. But fortunately the guys who runs the campground we’re staying in runs a pretty tight ship and once the concerts are over about 11 o’clock, he doesn’t allow much horsing around and noise making. By midnight it’s pretty quiet with the occasional exception of some idiot who might come roaring down the road. But then you have to consider where you’re at and take it all in stride. We just keep the windows closed and the A/C on and don’t hear much of anything. This rig is pretty well insulated so we sleep through the night and often don’t hear what everyone is talking about the next morning.

So now I must put my sunburned, wind burned body to bed so I’ll be ready for tomorrow.

G’night all.

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

The Babes and Studs of Sturgis

Love Lena

How do I get myself into these things?

How do I manage to get into such predicaments? The ladies at the check-in desk at the campground remembered me from last year because I lost Petunia (my cat) here. This year I posted a sign on the bulletin boards just to see if I could connect with anyone who may have seen her last year or who might have found her lounging in one of their compartments when they got home. So far nothing. But one of the ladies came to our door at 8 o’clock this morning, wondering if we would take in a little waif kitten that had come to the office four days ago and so far no one had come looking for it. They were afraid it was going to get run over with all the traffic. So I agreed – I would look after the kitten hoping that someone would claim it.

Senior Citizen Simon didn’t even raise an eyebrow when I brought the kitten in. Just looked at me as though I had brought him another chore to do – teaching this young whipper-snapper how to behave. You know – regular daily routine – eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop, and repeat. After they got acquainted and Simon decided it was time for a little Crack (catnip, people, we’re in a drug free zone in this house), Kitten came flying from under one of the chairs, landed on Simon’s back and made another flying leap heading for the bedroom. Simon turned his head, looked over his shoulder and I could hear him saying, “What the hell was that that just flew over my head?” Then continued on eating his Crack. Simon is one cool cat. Not much ruffles his feathers anymore.

Anyway, once I was satisfied that Simon was qualified to kitty sit we took off for the day. When we got back there was a note attached to our door: Lost, one gray kitten with red collar. Yup – that must be the one I have in the RV. So I called the number and had a difficult time understanding the man that answered the phone. I think he’d been into too much moonshine from the hills of Tennessee or something. The lady arrived shortly to claim her kitty, and I had second thoughts about giving it back. She smiled at me with all four of her teeth and told me in a moonshine slur that yes, she let’s the kitten run free in the campground because he knows where he lives and besides it only goes down two campsites and then comes home!! NOT – the kitten had been at the office for the last four days.

First of all, you can’t let a kitten/cat run free in this setting. There’s way too much traffic and way too many crazy drivers. Tomorrow I’m going to stop at the office and tell the ladies in the office about my conversation with the woman. If the kitten shows up at the office again I’ll come and get it and this time she won’t get it back. Am I mean?

Anyway, after all that we took off and our first stop was to see the Budweiser Clydesdales. They are such huge, regal and beautiful animals. We’ve seen them before pulling their wagon, but unfortunately due to the heavy traffic in the area they won’t be doing their hitch here.

Then it was on down to Hill City for lunch, crossing over to Keystone on the 1880 Steam Train Road, then over to Mount Rushmore and back to Sturgis. This was a seven-hour day on the bike, so all of us have sore butts and backs.

Tomorrow will be a day off, so to speak. We won’t be doing a lot of riding. G. Gordon Liddy (of Watergate fame) is broadcasting his daily radio show from one of the casinos in Deadwood and the public is invited to watch. G. Gordon is one of Ole’s heroes, so he of course will be there, and then have one of his books signed.

And I forgot to tell you. We had a party last night. I told you previously that Dave and Karen’s daughter, Kerilynn, has just completed airborne school in the Army. Unfortunately, her parents weren’t able to be there for her graduation and to pin her wings on. So last night we had a little party in honor of the occasion. They invited all the neighboring campers that they knew and then did steaks on the grille along with all the trimmings. Wonderful evening.

Ole tried to convince me to go to the Full Throttle Saloon with him tonight. The Full Throttle’s reputation is that of being the biggest biker bar in the world. It covers 20 acres, has a number of stages, a burnout pit, and bull riding arena, etc. It’s kind of a take off on Gilly’s in Texas but for bikers, not cowboys. I told him I wasn’t interested – too tired after all the riding. And besides I’ve seen everything that goes on over there more than once and don’t need to see it again. Well, all his enthusiasm for going to the Full Throttle has waned and he’s now into a nap in the armchair in the RV. So he’s currently making ZZZZs – so much for the Full Throttle (fine by me) – I can hear it from here just fine!!

Norton and the Leopard Lady

Well, Folks, I’m sorry to say I have no further information about the possible bomb threat downtown last night. But then that doesn’t surprise me at all because there’s lots of stuff that happens downtown that never makes it on the news. It’s kept on the quiet side, if you know what I mean, although we did hear a BIG BOOM about midnight last night. Now whether it was fireworks or the Bomb Squad exploding their device, we don’t know. When we went down Main Street this morning the building was still standing, so that was definitely a positive.

Several years ago there was a biker from Australia that made the news because it took so many bullets to put him down. He was high on meth, walking down the street with a baseball bat in a residential area, putting out car windows and beating up the local residents. The cops were called, he was asked to put down the weapon numerous times to no avail. I don’t remember all the details, but apparently it took eleven shots from a gun to get him to stop.

Normally, there is at least one clash between gang members. Last year it was the Hell’s Angels and the Banditos. It happened about 2 a.m. one night on a back street and it took all the fire trucks and water hoses that Sturgis had to get things under control.

Now don’t get me wrong. You really have nothing to worry about when you come to the bike rally. If you go LOOKING for trouble you will definitely find it. But if you’re just a regular Joe on the street you have nothing to worry about. I should clarify that, nothing to worry about other than getting taken advantage of by all the Rag Heads (sorry I’m not politically correct here) that operate a high percentage of the vending booths. I won’t go there tonight, but will tell you a story about that in another entry.

Today we rode Spearfish Canyon, one of my favorite rides. The rock walls go straight up with lots of pine trees peppering the walls, pine trees growing out of rock pinnacles, making you wonder how they manage to cling to life and find enough soil to survive. All along the canyon there are beautiful log homes with big front porches tucked in here and there overlooking a beautiful creek that’s rushing down the mountain. We stopped in Spearfish for lunch and then rode back.

One of the sights we saw in Spearfish was The Leopard Lady. She obviously had not looked in the mirror before she left home that morning. She had on knee-high leopard skin boots with very pointy toes and spike heels and rhinestone buckles that went all the way around her ankles. Leopard print pants cut off at the knees with a cut out on the right side of her stomach to show off her tatoo, and a leopard print jacket that she's not wearing in the picture I managed to get of her. This woman was riding on the back of a Harley giving all the rest of us backseat Harley riders a bad name.

This evening was spent at Dave and Karen’s campsite for steaks on the grille and all the trimmings. As I said previously, their daughter has just completed Airborne School in the Army. Her father was not able to be at her graduation to pin her wings on, so we had a little celebration for her tonight where her father pinned her wings on. There were about ten people there, and it brought a tear to all of our eyes so see parents so proud of their youngest daughter. She’s a wonderful young lady.

One of the great things about this campground is that the same people get the same campsites every year. This is the 8th year we’ve met Karen and Dave from Arizona here, the 3rd year we’ve met Rocky, Billie and Norton from Kansas, and the 3rd year we’ve met Jeff and his Dad, Jerry, from Huron, SD. And we’ve all already reserved the same sites for next year. It’s almost like Old Home Week!!

Now I need to tell you about Norton. Norton is a dog that is half black lab and half pit bull that is the biggest lover you have ever met. He's just over a year old and likes to think he's a lap dog. He climbs in your lap, puts his front paws around your neck and gives you lots of kisses. He just LOVES people. In the mornings as people are walking by on their way to the showers he's the official greeting party, running out to greet everyone with a lick and a bit of a bark and a happy wiggle of his tail. That's this dog's only threat - beware of his tail or it may beat you and leave black and blue marks.

So, there’s nothing exciting to report today. So here are a few pictures that might entertain you.