Sturgis was next on our list of must sees. We rode motorcycles a number of years ago and loved riding with friends in Florida as well as in the gently rolling countryside of mid-Tennessee. And of course, living in Florida, we enjoyed several trips to Daytona for Bike Week. But unlike some of our hardier biking friends we never really considered making the trek to the legendary Sturgis, which in my mind is somehow the Mecca of motorcyclists. Now in South Dakota we had to visit, if nothing else to buy a T-Shirt and have a beer. As it turned out we had missed the big Sturgis event, a 75th anniversary celebration, by a couple of weeks, but signs of the recent event were evident and there was still a festive atmosphere.
We took our time on the beautiful drive to Sturgis, and as we had skipped breakfast we stopped at a restaurant on the outskirts of the city that had outdoor seating. Buddi was with us and she always enjoys sharing our meals. As we enjoyed our breakfast we wondered aloud just what people did for a living right in Sturgis...when hordes of motorcyclists were not around. Our waiter, a young man who was planning international travel following this summer job, told us nearly all of the local help was seasonal.
We drove around town, purchased fuel below the $2.00 mark! then parked and wandered the streets before settling in one of the big biker bars for the obligatory beer and T-shirt. There were still a few motorcyclists cruising the main street and it was a pleasant afternoon.
A side note: our Sun Conure, who is almost certainly the most spoiled bird/pet in the nation, has two things which either terrify her or make her angry: with a bird it's often difficult to tell which. She screeches loudly and usually runs down to one lap or the other whenever she sees one of those orange and white striped barrels or cones used during roadway repair or highway construction. We are baffled as to why she hates the things. The don't move or flap wings, yet she regards them as she might a giant eagle...while we sympathize with her phobia it can extremely annoying when the construction...and the barrels...go on for miles.
The second thing she finds odious is motorcycles. One would think the noise is what bothers her, yet she takes offense at bicycles as well, apparently lumping all two wheeled vehicles into the category of "thing that aggravate the bird." We really should have thought about that before we took her on the trip to Sturgis!!
(And in case anyone wonders why Larry is often seen in pictures wearing the same yellow shirt...
we have four of these oversized T's we wear while traveling to, um, protect us from Buddi.)
Between Sturgis and Rapid City we found a national cemetery and stopped for a quiet walk through. It is sobering to see the long rows of grave stones for our military, going back through past wars, knowing that as the U.S. continues to fight new battles these cemeteries will to grow ever larger with the soldiers of current strife.
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