Sturgis, 2015, Day 6

Today was a day to catch up on things I had put off.  I started the day going to the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, just outside the gate at Ellsworth AFB, about 7 miles east of Rapid City.  It appears to be a work in process.  Just like many museums around the country, this one is supported by private funding.  However, there was a fairly good selection of aircraft, all examples of those flown by units at Ellsworth over the years.  A lack of funds shows in the dilapidated condition of most of the aircraft.  The most notable exceptions were the B-1 and B-29 at the entrance to the museum.

I walked through the various displays, checked out the gift store and static displays and headed off to the second event of the day…Black Hills Harley Davidson.

Black Hills Harley Davidson was on my list to check out the hundred or so vendors at that location.  Located on the western edge of Rapid City, the dealership is huge.  The showroom and merchandise are on the main level while the maintenance facility is on a lower level.    But I wasn’t to discover this until later in the day as the exit off the interstate was backed up with motorcycles and a lonely car or two almost onto the interstate.  I opted to make my visit later and kept heading west to Sturgis.

I went past the first exit to Sturgis and got off at the western-most exit which hopefully would give me a chance to miss some of the traffic.  As I headed west on the interstate, it appeared that there were more motorcycles headed east than west…I couldn’t figure out what was happening back towards Rapid City.  Judging by the traffic at the Harley dealership when I passed, I figured there must have been a special breakfast or something.  In addition, the highway to Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park and the Crazy Horse Memorial goes through Rapid City…I’m sure many of these riders were headed to the Black Hills.

I found Main Street in Sturgis about 10:30 and I was hoping I was early enough to avoid the wall-to-wall motorcycles I’d seen the first time…I was mistaken.  It took me about an hour to make it 5 blocks and another 30 minutes to get to the interstate to leave town.  I was going park and walk around a little but when I saw the crowd this morning I changed my mind.

Today was officially the first day of the Rally, although folks around here say they can’t see anything different today than the last week.  With a million…yes, I said a million…motorcycles expected in town, plus the passengers on a large percentage of those motorcycles, there are a lot of people here.

After escaping the mayhem they call Sturgis, I headed back towards Rapid City with a short stop at the Black Hills National Cemetery.  It is a fairly large cemetery but not the largest national cemetery I’ve seen.  I drove through the cemetery and then headed towards Black Hills Harley Davidson…thought I’d try it one more time and perhaps whatever was happening this morning was over.

As I approached the exit I didn’t see a huge line of motorcycles on the off ramp so I decided to give it a shot.  As soon as I got to the top of the rise I noticed there was still a large number of motorcycles but since I was already in line, I decided to wait it out.  Once I finally made it to the turn to the dealership, I saw guys marshalling traffic into the dealership.  I wasn’t aware how large this place was so I was concerned about the parking but as it turned out I shouldn’t have worried…this place is huge and there’s plenty of parking. 

Traffic was routed around the front of the dealership, two-by-two, down the side past all the vendor’s semi’s…parked so as to form a wall between the makeshift roadway and the vendor area…and then the line circled back around to a huge parking area behind the dealership.  There were marshallers all around the route and helped separate those bikers coming in from those exiting.  The parking lot was designed specifically for events such as Sturgis.  There are mini roads…complete with yellow line down the middle…painted on the pavement with solid white lines between the mini roads that allow for two lines of motorcycles to park between the mini roads…if that makes any sense.  If everyone does it correctly, all motorcycles are parked headed out so that when they get ready to leave, all they have to do is pull out and follow the mini roads.  There’s probably enough parking for well over 1,000 motorcycles.  Out front there is an overflow lot made of gravel.

The whole thing is super-organized, including the vendors.  Whoever did the planning is a logistics planning wonder.  Speaking of vendors, every major vendor…and dozens of lesser known ones…was present at the dealership, as well as Sturgis itself.  Judging by the activity at most of the tents, business was good.  If you need custom wheels, a new seat, a better exhaust system or a concert-loud sound system, you came to the right place.

Oh, and there’s plenty of food to choose from as well…fancy grilled cheese sandwiches with macaroni and cheese, chili dogs, corn dogs, pulled pork sandwiches and the list goes on.  I opted for the chili dog…big mistake.  Should have gone with the corn dog.

Anyway, I spent a couple of hours walking around, doing a little shopping in the dealership and then left.  The next activity of the day was getting my truck ready for the return trip. 

It’s been an interesting three days but I’m ready to get out of the area.  According to the news tonight, there have already been as many fatalities in the first day as the entire rally last year and it’s only going to get worse because there’s rain in the forecast over the next 2-3 days.  Wild riders and wet pavement do not mix well.

Thanks for following along these last few days.  I’ve got more pictures that I’ll be glad to show you if you ask.  I also have some video footage…assuming I operated the new GoPro correctly.  When I tried it out back home, I had it in the wrong mode and took over 3,000 pictures.  It took a long time to load them onto the computer as well as deleting them. 

I may have one more post after I get home so keep checking back.