Sturgis Rally
Sunday, Day 12
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Projected weather forecast for today's destination
Highlights of the day
Here it is, the day we all have not been waiting for. It's time to go home, back to work and responsibilities, but we will have some of the best memories ever.
Most of us had pretty much packed up the majority of our stuff the evening before which made for little work in the a.m. Only the essentials being left out to deal with. Dion, Glenn, & Jill would be rolling out later and making their Eastern trip for home, we would not be seeing them again until the next Daytona Bike Week. Phil was still packing and since he has a speady bike, said he would catch up later. Considering our trip up, there was no doubt in our minds that he could do it. It's was a foggy 62 degrees when we rolled out. Allen, Dennis, Ricky, and I left right around 6:30 a.m. We headed for the gas station in Hill City to fuel up for the ride. Since the stopping every 100 miles worked on the way up, we all agreed that this would be the plan for the way home.
We stopped a couple times before getting to Mitchell, SD (where we had met Roy on the way up). We decided we would stop at the same restaurant that we had breakfast at on Sunday morning last. While we were there, we figured it was quite appropriate that we check on Roy, since he was probably already home. So Dennis dialed his number and got him on the line. We told him that we were at the same restaurant and thinking about him. He said that he had arrived home on Friday around 7p.m. and at one point on the way he passed a truck. The truch had displayed on the side...... an ear of corn! He said he started laughing so hard remembering the incident at One Eyed Jacks with the waitress and Dennis' impression of corn rows that he nearly hit the car in front of him. He had to pull over and almost rolled his bike. A truck stopped behind him to make sure he was ok and when asked if he was alright, he was laughing so hard that he couldn't answer the question. I'm sure the drive thought he was nuts. Let's face it, a guy alone, riding along, laughing hysterically? Certifyable NUTE! We were rolling when he told us the storey. But he said he had a great time and the next time we go somewhere, we better call him because he wants to go too.
We continued on through the steady cross winds into Iowa. I told the guys that when we got there I was going to drip to the rear to carefully pick my way through the potholes. Since my one saddlebag was already splitting, I figured that every bump I took would cause just more damage and there were too many miles in between were we were and home not to use some caution. I sure didn't need my clothes and laptop laying in the middle of the highway. Remembering the 2006 trip where I litterally had to bungee cord my saddlebags together to the frame of my bike just to keep the contents inside was not something that I wanted to repeat. Since I had shipped my leathers home, I decided it would be pretty smart to put on layers of shirts to keep warm. So I left SD in a tank top, under a t-shirt, under a long sleeve shirt, under a sweatshirt and reduced the load I was carrying at the same time. What I didn't realize was that if it started to rain, I was going to turn all my dry clothes into wet clothes and be totally miserable. When we got to Iowa I had to start peeling off layers as Iowa in the summer is very hot.
The other thing about Iowa is we also hit CORN again! On the way up, we had seen sweet corn, feed corn, baby cor, dead corn, and blackened fields of what we figure was at one time POPCORN! Then there was the Corn Palace. I think I would be pretty bored living up there whan all you have is corn. There was also stinking corn. Which smelled a lot like cow manure, but there were no visible cows and from that much smell, there should have been. Hope they ship that stuff off somewhere other than Florida cause I know that if I can't get it past my nose...... there's no way I'm eating it.
somewhere south of Sioux City and north of Council Bluffs, we had hit our 500 miles. That was the determining factor of when we would stop for the night. Dennis and I knew we had to get at least 500 miles out of the Bagger Boys to be able to make it home on time and let me tell you, that was no easy trick. We also knew that we were riding the NE side of an incoming front and we could hit rain at any time. We pulled off the road at Missouri Valley, IA and into a Days Inn. There was one bike already in the parking lot. It was a BMW and sure enough, it was Super Phil. He had pulled in about 45 minutes in front of us. Now the likelyhood of him choosing the exact same hotel when none of us had talked about it was astounding. He only knew the route we intended to take home and that the group would probably do at least 500 miles per day.
Phil had said that he ran into the Massachusetts group about 100 miles back and that they were probably going to drive straight through. They had left the lodge after he did. We looked at the map, planned our next stop for Mt Vernon, IL and checked the weather coming in. Since mine was the only laptop still functioning, everone used it to check email, updates, and important information. By the time it was my turn to use it, I was already asleep.
Today's best pictures
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| Ricky the "Bungee Man" |
Caution |
At the lodge |
More Photos from this trip
The Sturgis Journey of 2008
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