American Adventure

South Dakota (Sturgis Bike Rally)

Thank you to Fred & Ivy Gali of Spearfish, SD

Starting on August 05, 2002, 2:52:26 PM

A day in Sturgis made for an interesting experience. Harleys everywhere and there I was tooling around in my little Yamaha. I definitely stuck out like a sore thumb. But that's always what I enjoy, being different. Nope, I never have wanted to fit in with everybody else. However, in this case I really didn't have a choice anyway.

My first stop I got some pictures in Deadwood, SD. Just up the highway from Sturgis, this town is like a historical town but has been transformed into a gambling town. With casinos along the main strip is a local hot spot for the slot machines and other various gambling activities. Since I have no urge to drop my money into the machines I just took some pictures and kept riding.

Here you can see a guy riding through Sturgis with a stuffed gorilla on his bike. Several other bikes rolled through town with various interesting objects strapped to the back of their bikes.

The sound was amazing. At no time did the rumble stop or even show signs of diminishing. There was a constant rumble all through town. I found a place to park and wandered around town. Up and down the streets there was a flood of tents with vendors of all kinds from all over. Bike accessories, clothing, food, and all kinds of interesting things.

The amount of bikes was staggering. I could have spent all day taking pictures of all the different bikes.

Many of the bikes had some incredibly detailed paint jobs on them. You could tell that somebody put a ton of work into them.

As I walked around I saw so many interesting variations of motorcycles. Of course there was lots of three wheel bikes but some of the other ones were so very different they definitely caught my eye.

The rows and rtows of bikes just kept going on and all the way down the streets of this small town. As far as you could see there were bikes and people.

On different sides of the street were vendors and manufacturers displaying their products. Some amazing different types of vehicles, definitely made me think of buying a new bike and/or that thing, or one of those, or something like that. Not normally all that attracted to Harleys myself I found myself wanting a new bike. One that rumbled like these.

I looked out across up into the hills and could see the rain clouds over in the Spearfish area. Later, after much time spent working my way through Sturgis I made my way back up to Spearfish. The rain started shortly after I got there and, for a moment, a sunset came out and made some of those pretty colors across the sky.