After 4 and a half days and nearly 2,000 miles of hard riding, this was the sign that greeted me when I finally arrived in the legendary City of Sturgis, South Dakota. It was spine-tingling as I passed under the banner and headed slowly down Junction Ave in a parade of iron horses. The low rumble of Harley V-twins was a constant presence all around me, and would be for the next four days, as bikes were literally everywhere. There were thousands and thousands of them - mostly Harleys, but there were representations of just about every make and model of motorcycle you can name out there. I almost felt a little sorry for the metrics that you couldn't even tell were running as they were drowned out by Milwaukee iron, custom choppers, and even a few Boss Hoss V-8s.
I wear this same patch on my vest. To me, it represents more than just another biker cliché. Those of us who really love to ride find these to be some of the truest words ever spoken, so before I get into the rally, I'm going to talk about the ride out. My friend and HOG brother Jay O'Leary was the only one who made the trip with me. Long-time readers may remember him from my ride to the 105th in Milwaukee last year. We got somewhat of a late start on Saturday, August 1st, so we only did a wimpy 200 miles or so on our first day out. We stopped in Canajoharie, NY, a little town off I-90 about halfway between Albany and Syracuse, ending up at the mercy of the only place to stay at that exit.
The Rodeway Inn we pulled into looked like your typical fifty-buck-a-nite motor lodge where you park right outside the door to your room, which I actually prefer when on my bike. Jay and I nearly shit when the guy in the office told us it would be $115 for the night! The guy was trying to tell us the rate was so high because we were in a "touristy" area, but that was crap. The only thing near this place was the Erie Canal - big deal. The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown was about 35 miles away, but I still didn't think that rated over a C-note to stay in this shithole. Unfortunately, it was getting dark by this time so we really had no choice. Motorcycle on highway + dark + Bambi = at best Hospital, and at worst the eternal dirtnap.
They say everything happens for a reason, and even though we paid more to stay in this dump than anyplace else on the trip, we didn't end up regretting it. The one good thing the thieving desk clerk did for us was point us to the Charter House Restaurant just over the line in Fort Plain. Run by Georgene and Joe Rosemeyer for the past 35 years, this local gem is where you want to stop if you find yourself traveling through the area. We sat down at the bar inside and in no time at all the Rosemeyer's hospitality made us feel like we were regulars in the place. We had huge, delicious shrimp cocktails, followed by melt-in-your-mouth prime rib. When I asked how late the liquor store next door was open til, Joe said, "We own that too. Why? Do you want something from over there?"
I told Joe I wanted a bottle of Jack for a nightcap in the room later.
"No problem," he said, picking up the phone. In 5 minutes there's a kid standing behind the bar with my bottle. All I had to do was pay him, and I never got up from my stool. You'd have a better chance of seeing God than having that kind of service experience in Massachusetts. I couldn't believe it.
The next thing we know, the place is basically closed, and Jay and I are sitting there drinking with the owners and a few of the waitresses. Joe had bought us a round, and was going to buy us one for the road when we were about to leave, but we declined because we knew we'd had enough and had to ride the bikes back to the "palace" we were staying in. Still, the offer itself was the icing on the cake for the night. I've dropped more than a couple of Ben Franklin's in the Boneyard over the last 18 months or so, and if Blackstone ever got a round on the house, I wasn't there for it. Great food and even better hospitality makes it no surprise that the Charter House has been going strong since the 1970s. We tried to stop there for dinner on our way back too, but unfortunately when we called ahead we found out they were closed that night. Thank you Georgene and Joe - I will be back again sometime.
Most of Sunday was spent in New York - it is one LONG state to ride across. 375 more miles (130 of which were in pretty heavy rain) took us out of NY, through about 50 miles of Pennsylvania, and into Ohio. We stopped in Geneva for the night, found a reasonably priced room right off the highway, and there was a steak house across the street. We enjoyed another great dinner, though the atmosphere wasn't as good as the spoiling we enjoyed at the Charter House. I was starting to realize by now that time was precious on this trip. You'd think I'd have had all the time in the world, but in reality riding at least 400 miles a day is go-go-go. That makes it tough trying to keep in touch with those at home. Stopping for gas, there are just a few minutes to make a quick call or send a text. Stop for the night, get all the gear off the bike, and it's time to go eat. When dinner's over, it's after 10 at night or later.
Monday morning we got back on 90 West and pulled into the first service plaza for gas. All the service plazas in Ohio look exactly like this one, even though you can't tell from the picture that this particular one is on fire. It actually made the paper - the article is here if you want to check it out. We had seen white smoke coming from the roof when we pulled in, but we figured it was just the food court exhaust hoods. Nope. We park, start walking towards the doors, and people are coming out telling us there's a fire inside. Unbelievable!
Whatever it was, maintenance or restaurant employees must have mostly extinguished it themselves, because there was no more smoke coming from the place by the time the Jakes arrived. We were at least able to gas up, Jay was forced to pee in the woods at the far end of the truck parking lot, and we were back on the road again.
I never really appreciated just how BIG the United States is until I started riding across it on a motorcycle, and as long as this trip was I still haven't made it from coast-to-coast. Once you really get out there, much of it is like you see here - just a big, long, flat stretch in front of you. In some places where there's little or no other traffic, as Jay remarked, "It's like riding on an airport runway."
This is what I probably saw the most of - CORN - and lots of it. Some of these farms by the interstate are so huge that the cornrows seem to go on for miles and miles as far as you can see. As we tore through Ohio and Indiana, I kept thinking about that funny YouTube video about Iowa, "Corn, corn, corn...corn, corn, corn...LOOK...A TREE!...corn, corn, corn..."
Last year en route to Milwaukee, we met some guys from Illinois while staying overnight in Indiana who told us to avoid going through Chicago, and we took their advice. Against our better judgment we were lazy this time, and went straight through the city on I-90 instead of stopping to plot a go-around route. How's that rush hour traffic downtown treating you? Yeah - it was a bad idea. It was my second time in the Windy City, and I was again overwhelmed by just how damned BIG it is. Boston would probably fit into it two or three times. Undaunted by the brutal traffic, and encouraged by picking up an extra hour crossing into the Central Time Zone, we pushed on through Illinois and really kicked ass. We made it to Madison, Wisconsin at sundown, for a day's total of nearly 540 miles. We got a decent rate at a Day's Inn and found a Buffalo Wild Wings just down the road to eat and have a few beers, but we were pretty beat so it was an early night.
On Tuesday we crossed the mighty Mississippi River (a first for me) and spent the lion's share of the day in Minnesota, the ONLY state we traveled through where I didn't see any State cops on the road. Ohio and Indiana were absolutely peppered with them. It's nice to see a state that doesn't believe in hassling people for speeding through miles and miles of dead-flat farmland, even though the posted limit is only 65. What a joke that is - any less than 75 and you'd feel like you were crawling. That's such a sharp contrast to here in Mass where the über-hypocritical State Police are worse drivers than civilians are, doing 90+ on the highway when it's not an emergency, tailgating people, changing lanes without signaling, etc. I guess that's what happens when nobody watches the watchers, but I digress.
Our goal was to make it over the South Dakota border, and we did. A 430+ mile day got us into Sioux Falls by nightfall. Again, we lucked out with a reasonable room rate and a good eatery within walking distance. We were enjoying a few after-dinner cocktails in this nice little Sports Bar and Casino when Jay got hit on by a woman there who was half in the bag. She had come down to us from the other end of the bar telling the bartender she wanted to "buy the gentlemen a drink." Seeing her affections were obviously for my friend (she told him he had nice eyes) I took the opportunity to get out of the way and go play a little video blackjack. Maggie was her name and she was a hoot - she even picked up our whole tab at the end of the night - nearly 60 bucks! Nothing happened though, mainly because Jay's a very happily married man...and probably because Maggie was 74 years old. Another classic story from the road!
As you can probably imagine, the morning of Wednesday, August 5th saw us itching to finally get to Sturgis, but "mecca" was still nearly 400 miles away. Most of those miles were on the flat "runways" I mentioned earlier, but when we hit Chamberlain, we went from the dead flats to going down something like the side of a canyon. A breathtaking view of the Missouri river was before us, crossing which was more impressive than the Mississippi in my opinion. We picked up another hour of daylight crossing into Mountain Time, and made it to Sturgis around 4pm safe and dry. In fact, except for the one stretch in New York State I mentioned, the ride out was rain-free. Considering the overall wet summer we've had so far, we really lucked out. The only thing I can really say I didn't like about the ride out? Loading and unloading all the gear off the bike every day - that was a pain in the ass!
Obviously this adventure has to be told in parts because there's just so much to tell. I have several hundred pictures so I'm probably going to have to do a slideshow or two also in the posts to follow.
Next up: The rally, the nightlife, the strip, riding in the Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore, etc, and not necessarily in that order as I'm shooting from the hip here as I go along.
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