It had rained overnight and the day was decidedly cooler than what we had been used to. We decided to head out to Sturgis straight after breakfast and were caught in a brief shower on the interstate on the way out.
We walked around some vendors to buy a few souviner items. Tracce and I talked at length with Mark one of the T Shirt store owners. He actually lived and worked in New Zealand for a few years, so was interested in our journey and life back in NZ. Mark lives in California and owns 3 stores in Sturgis that are only open for the rally week! His store has sold 50,000 T Shirts during the rally - and turnover has been up about 30% from previous years due to this year being the 70th Anniversary. We talked about the motorcycle accident the day before where as we heard later there was a fatality and one critically injured. On average there are around 12 fatalities during rally week. This year so far, there have been 8. It sounds a lot, but when you consider the amount of people (between 500,000 and 750,000) expected to attend during the week, it is probably in line with the national statistical averages.
We then decided to ride a few miles down the road to the infamous 'Full Throttle Saloon'. This has been featured back home in NZ on a documentary recently, and in the eveing can be a pretty wild place! This year the rock group 'Guns 'n' Roses' performed there. It was a cold day when we called in for a look, so the normally scantily clad bar staff were shivering in sweat shirts (along with hot pants and fishnet stockings).
After an agonising half hour of bumper-to-bumper traffic crawling at a snails pace to exit Sturgis we finally made it to highway 14a to Deadwood and rode through the town of Lead (where actor Kevin Costner's parents live) and then a fantastic ride through the scenic Spearfish Canyon. There was the odd patch of light rain, but the ride was thoroughly enjoyable. This was the area where Kevin Costner filmed the winter scene in his movie 'Dances with Wolves'. After lunch at Spearfish we rode back down the interstate to Rapid City.
We spent the late afternoon and evening with Chuck and Karla Blackler. We spent some time with their son Cody and future daughter-in-law Olivia in Denver (with the band Paper Tongues). We went out for coffee and then on to a nice family owned restuarant. Chuck convinced me (without to much resistance from me I might add), that as it was our last night in South Dakota - I have to eat some Buffalo. I had a magnificant medium rare Buffalo Ribeye with a whole (yes whole) garlic. Apparantly you are supposed to eat a clove of roasted garlic with every mouthful of buffalo meat. The meal was delicious - but Tracee did not appreciate the lingering odour on my breath afterwards! I felt a little guilty at first (for a nano-second) at eating what is a protected animal - but the National Park's need to cull the herds each year to make sure there is enough grazing for the herd numbers within the boundary of the Park. I have quite an interest in the history of the 'West' and Native American history in particular. Chuck was very knowledgable on this subject and I learnt much interesting information about the Battle of Little Bighorn and the Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. A great couple and a great evening. We look forward to catching up with them early next year when they visit New Zealand for Cody and Olivia's wedding.
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