Our Motorcycle Ride To 65th Sturgis

The above picture is of Leta (http://cruisergurl.blogspot.com/) taking a smoke break at our campsite after we got our tent up Saturday afternoon at Sturgis. We had planned to put up camp late Friday evening, but we never made it to the campground that evening. Here is the story.

I had to work Friday morning so we left Sioux City and headed for Sturgis that afternoon at 1:30 PM. Destination was Chris's Campground in Spearfish, SD. We took Highway 12 across Northeast Nebraska over to Niobrara. Next we crossed the Missouri river into South Dakota and headed north to Avon. In Avon we met Highway 50 west and headed to Ft. Randall where we followed Highway 18 northwest until we switch to Highway 44 west just west of Winner. Highway 44 runs through White River, the Badlands and then out to Rapid City. Our experience is that this is a great route and we had done all the various pieces of it in the past.

In Southwest South Dakota you can see the sky a long ways into the distance. As we road from White River towards Interior we could see a band of black clouds. We both were thinking about our great luck as we initially seemed to find an opening in the storm and the dark clouds went to our left and right. A few miles later though a second group of even darker clouds loomed off to our right in the Northwest. We thought at first we would be skirt around the south edge of that storm. We were mistaken.

Ten miles from Interior and Badlands National Park, Highway 44 turns north. When we turned the clouds which had been to our right side were now looming directly ahead. The sun had ducked by behind the clouds and it was dark. Normally there would have been another hour of light. We could see a wall of rain and lightning in the distance just ahead of us and it was obvious that we would be soon riding directly into a storm. It looked like the worm had turned.

On this particular stretch of highway 44 there are no places to seek protection from the elements. There was not even any warm friendly farm or ranch lights in the distance. We were beginning to see and feel some very big drops of rain. It was becoming apparent that no matter how fast we rode, we were not going to make it to Interior to wait out the storm.

I pulled off first and started to put on some of my rain gear. Leta zoomed by. A local rancher pulled over in his pickup and stock trailer and told me that on only had 5 more miles go to get to Interior. I threw on my waterproof jacket liner, switched to my helmet's clear face shield so I could see, and jumped on my Beemer and set out to catch up with Leta.

At the crest of the next hill I found Leta pulled over with all her rain gear on smoking a cigarette, watching the storm and waiting for me. She calmly said "it looks likes it was going to rain" and mocked me by saying she hadn't seen an underpasses in quite a while to stop at. On that last trip I had "explained" to her to always try use an overpass to change into rain wear when there isn't a good place to get off the road. I said something about stopping on a hill in a lightning stom and she pointed out the telephone poles near her. I put my rain pants and rubber Totes and we took off again.

When we started rolling again, a really stiff and cold west wind picked up almost immediately. The dark skies were now beginning to shed some real rain. As we headed toward Interior it seemed like we were being blasted by a 40 to 50 MPH cross winds from the west. We tried to plant our bikes on the road's center line but the gusts kept knocking us across much of our lane. The rain had also continued to increase in intensity and we were now being pelted on our left sides by horizontal rain. I don't recall ever riding in a harsher summer storm then before this.

We were forced to drop our speed down to 15 to 20 MPH. I was concerned about being rear-ended by traffic from behind until we passed a couple of cars heading the opposite direction at a similar speed. Every few hundred yards a large brown shape would leap from the ditch and run across the road. We shortly figured out with our blurry vision that these were tumbleweeds, but in the rain and poor light a tumble week is hard to distinguish between a deer and tumbleweed.

After ten minutes or so we passed what seemed to be like a campground. My clouded judgment told me that we were on the outskirts of Interior so we continued on for better accommodations to sit out the storm. After a couple more miles we reached Interior. We didn't see many lights on the outskirts of town so we turned off the highway and headed towards the "downtown" area.

We found the only place open "downtown" was a little bar called the "Wagon Wheel" which had a couple of old gas pumps across the street and a gravel parking area. There was a perfect parking space where we could keep an eye on the bikes in front of the bar in the middle of an eight foot wide puddle. We were greeted at the door by a couple of healthy looking Native Americans who apparently had already spent quite a bit of their Friday evening at the bar. They were rough housing with each other as they tried to arrange a ride home. Inside the bar we found a few huddles of bikers talking about the rain and playing pool with some of the locals. The stereo was playing some good ole 70's rock and roll tunes and everyone seemed to be having fun.

We were hungry and the waitress told us the ½ bacon-cheese burger with chips were really good. The menu only other menu item was the small burgers with chips on it. We ordered the big burgers. The owner of the bar provided us with a couple cups of hot coffee on the house. I don't know if it was the cold weather or the quality or freshness of the meat, but this little bar served up one of the best tasting burgers I have ever eaten. The burgers, which were well over a ½ pound, were so big that my hungry little wife could only eat a little over half of her burger and I was barely able to finish for her. At $4.50 with chips these burgers were a steal.

After hanging out at the bar for a while, several locals took pity on us and offered to let us stay at their homes. A couple of the bikers vouched that they were cool, but they looked like they where three sheets to the wind and I was pretty insistent about riding on. After an hour or so the rain subsided enough to allow us to continue, so after everyone called us nuts and wished us well, we kicked sage brush away from our bikes and then got on them and headed east on 44 again.

It had been about 80 miles since our last fee up and we didn't see a gas station in Interior in the rain. We ussually plan on a 100 mile range with Leta's shadow to be on the safe side. I told Leta there were several little towns on 44 and we could fill up any one of them. What I didn't take into account is that many of those stations where now permanently closed and the rest were closed for the evening. There were no all night credit card pumps either like the ones back home in Iowa.

After about an hour and another 30 miles of intense riding we pulled off the Highway into Scenic, SD. Scenic is apparently smaller then Interior. The gas pumps there had been shutoff for some time and the bikers at the only bar in town across the street from the pumps waived us in. The temperature had dropped into the mid 50's and more coffee sounded pretty good.

Some people may think that this little bar in the middle of no where looked rustic, but in truth is it probably just hadn't been cleaned or remodeled for years. I was getting the feeling that this whole area of the state was a health inspector's no-man-land. That sort of government intervention was probably frowned on out there.

Parked in front of the bar was about a half dozen Harleys and a single BMW. Our Honda and beemer helped to even up the bike score some, but shortly after we arrived the other crazy BMW riders got on their RT and the pouring rain and headed to Rapid City.

In front of the bar was ground level cement pad which slopped towards the street. There were a few poles cemented into the ground out front to support the roof and to provide a place to tie up a horse or two. The roof of the porch was leaking badly in several spots. The water dripping from the roof rolled across the concrete slab back into some of the gravel and sand between the porch and street.

Inside there was a bar and about four booths, a bar with about 20 seats and a little over a dozen patrons. Working the bar was a man and a woman. The gruff old man appeared to be in his fifties or sixties and had that weathered look which seems to come pretty naturally in the Dakotas. The woman on the other hand looked to be in her forties and wore a tight black gothic looking outfit. Her actual age was could have been anyone's guess. She had a few piercing, some dark tattoos and long black hair. She sort of had an Elvira goes to Sturgis look going.

In the back of the bar was a gigantic dog sleeping next to an empty pool table. The dog easily weighed 150 pounds and had a head which was about as wide as my forearm. The dog seem pretty relaxed and would get up every now and then to check out the patrons before resuming his nap. A Native American sat alone at the far end of bar near the pool table. He later proclaimed to Leta when that he was the ghost of Jim Morrison. The floor of the bar, if there was actually was a floor, was covered with saw dust.

When we came in many of the bikers were had been watching us at the pumps. They seemed to find a lot of humor in telling us that there was gas about 20 miles or so north. Several of them were also were apparently looking for petrol too.

The waitress seemed to be engrossed in a discussion with a small group of cyclists standing at the bar. When our coffee was ready she half filled two 16 oz. paper Coke cups with the hot coffee, placed them on the bar and called me over to get them. She refused any money for the coffee and continued flirting with the guys across from her.

At a booth by the front door sat a couple from Ontario Canada. They had stopped at 5 PM for a beer when the weather started to turn nasty. They had left their leathers and rain gear at the camper they where sharing with friends that morning when they decided to ride 2-up at the last minute. They were waiting at the bar for the weather to change. By 11 PM the woman, who was incidentally pretty easy on the eyes, had drank quite a few beers. Her husband who had not been drinking much was beginning to get little concerned that they would have to stay at the "bunkhouse" across the street with all the other drunks at the bar. The bar charged $2 per head per night for a stay in the bunkhouse. From their description, the "bunkhouse" was just an old building with bunch of old beds and abosultley no amenities including the primary ones like clean sheets and privacy. Later one of the riders donated his sweatshirt this woman. I'm not sure if they stayed in the bunkhouse or not, but I didn't want my wife staying there with a bunch of drunk strangers in a strange place.

After our second cup of hot coffee it was past 11 PM and the rain had slowed down even more. We also realized there was no way we could get to Spearfish by 11 PM to checkin. Luckily we had one bar of analog cell service outside when we stood on our toes. Thank god we have tri-mode cell phones. We called our friend Scott who was staying with a friend named Steve who lived in Rapid City. When we asked Steve if we could crash on his garage floor, he offered wait up for us then put us up on a futon in his partially finished basement. He also gave me great directions on how to get to his house. Compared to the alternatives so far, Steve's offer sounded like deluxe accommodations.

We took Steve up on his offer and rode the last 42 miles to Rapid City. We rolled into Rapid City about 12:30 AM. We filled up the bikes at the first open service station because Leta had switched to reserve on her Shadow a few miles from town.

Saturday morning we got up early and had coffee at Steve's. After coffee we rode Highway 44 west over to 385 and then headed north to Deadwood for breakfast at Tin Lizzy's with Scott, Dick and Janis. They were all friends from home who were also staying with Steve. Steve and his wife started out riding to Deadwood with us, but had to turn arround about half way there and head back home due to the cold.

Thanks for the hospitality Steve! It was much appreciated.