Sturgis Rally
Saturday, Day 4
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Highlights of the day
Good Morning Kansas City. Sound believeable? I finished writing at midnight, Ricky sound asleep. You think I could get to sleep? Think again. You think I could wait until my alarm went off at 4:45am too? Heck no. Eyes flew open at 4 on the nose. Well, I'm up now so everyone else should be too right? Guess they don't think like I do. This parking lot is full of work trucks too but they are not moving like the one yesterday.
Well we are off course as far as the map goes. We don't know where Super Phil ended up last night. He is kinda doing his own thing. He has his GPS so we know he will get there. Only thing we know for sure, it is going to be a LONG HOT DAY!
OK, so the weather channel said it ws going to be a hot day. Actually, it was pleasant. We left the hotel at 6:30am and got a good start. We decided that today we would try a new plan to stop every 100 miles so that we could gas up, re-adjust our behinds, and hydrate. That plan seemed to work quite well. Shirley decided to act up once again. The new shifter that Allen put on the day before started to fail. It seems there is something stripped on the inside. They were all sitting on the ground looking for stomething to jam in the cylinder so that it wouldn't keep moving. They borrowed one of my sewing needles and tried to pound that into the cylinder. Somehow, they found something else to work temporarily. After we left Kansas City, the string of bikers goring north towards Sturgis become more frequent. Each time a group passed us, it just added to the excitement. I think the group would agree that the two best things we saw today was a group of 3 riders from Mississippi that passed us 3 times, each time with the girl of their group leading. The last time they passed Dennis held up his arm as if to say "Where ya been"? the next was the truck and trailer that passed with the white Schwinn bicycle strapped down in the back of the trailer in place of a motorcycle. What a sense of humor that guy has!
Once we hit Iowa, we were ready to leave it. It was like driving over a washboard. By the time your butt adjusted from one pothole, you were well on your way to hitting the far end of another. The gel pad that I had didn't help me one bit. So when we gassed up at noon time, we were ready for a sit down lunch just south of Sioux City, Iowa. We spent a good hour with the locals and got in some good conversation. We decided that we probably wouldn't make it to Hill City today but we would aleast knock off all but a few hundred miles so that we could be there by noon tomorrow. So we figured that we sould shoot for Chamberlain, SD and start looking for a room. Allen grabbed a couple of toothpicks, just in case Shirley needed some help with the shifter again, then he would shove a toothpick in the hole. Talk about engineering. The things guys will use to keep these bikes running. After we left the restaurant and got back on the road, the winds hit. Nice steady cross wind that blew us all over the highway. Now you need to understand that I had been preparing these guys for the last thwo months to expect this. What part of the story did they miss besides ALL OF IT! Guess they figured they were tougher than this girl. Remember the rule??? No Whining?
We hit the SD border at 1:40pm. The potholes in the road were replaced by grooves. The ones similar to when they are rippping up the pavement or like the metal grates of a drawbridge. B the time we passed through Sioux Falls, we were all nearly beat up. Then we got on I-90 going west and the wind direction changed. No longer coming from the east, now it is coming front the sw and hitting us in the gace. Seems the guys were ok with their half shell helmets but I had a full face that was covered with bug debris so I had the face shield open. The winds hit so hard that it nearly ripped the helmet off my head. Of course the head was trying to go with it. I was really glad when we stopped at Mitchell with only just under 300 miles to go for tomorrow.
We stopped at a Super 8 that was full and they were turning people away. But they sent us to a sister hotel in downtown Mitchell. So there are the four of us and another guy from PA who followed us there. When we got to the new hotel, Dennis struck up a conversation (no surprise there) with the fellow from PA whose name was Roy and it came out that he was looking for a place in Sturgis and we still had room available. So Roy is going with us in the morning and planning to stay with us for a few days. We all walked down the street to a Mexican restaurant and had an excellent meal. Then we walked across the street to get Allen another bottle of Makers Mark Bourbon. Notice the key word ANOTHER? No, the first one didn't break, it was drained.
The guys are all outside talking with the neighbors inthe hotel. One bagger 4 doors down has 178,000 miles on it. The owner just had the engine rebuilt. But it is missing the shifter. He said his stripped out also and he just took the heel shifter off and threw it away. Sounds like Shirley has a relative in the parking lot.
Glen and Dion are now at the lodge. He says it is beautiful. Our packages arrived and are there waiting on us. At dinner time, so far Phil had not arrived and we have not heard from him but I am sure that Dennis will call him later and find out where he is. We plan to leave around 7am in the morning and head for Rapid City and the lodge. We'll stop and have another comical breakfast and be on our way. Hopefully the winds will not be so strong.
Today's best pictures
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| More mechanical problems |
On the road again |
With our new friend Roy |
More Photos from this trip
The Sturgis Journey of 2008
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