After the first 6 hurs, Kat needed to lie down. this was in Ohio.
Here we are at the Corn Palace.
At Souix City
Me and Kat. We were close friends but never dated. i think she knew that I was a safe guy who would respect here and take care of her.
I never heard of the Corn Palace before. Had my first ever corn dog there.
My harley and Kats Sportster
South Dakota
No Name City was a nice little campground about 3 miles from Sturgis. I kept helping the owner with his wi-fi, mainly because I wanted to use it.
Welcome to South Dakota.
Welcome to North Dakota. Kat wanted to make an early trip into N Dakota so we set off at sunrise (it was cold) and rode north to the first little towm, about 50 miles into N Dakota. Had breakfast at a nice restaurant
We went into Wyoming to see Devils Tower.
We made a small trip to Montana, just to say we were there.
Bill, Kat, me and Linda. Bill is a hardcore rider. I told him i did not bring a gun, although I usually carried. So he showed me where his was hidden.
Mt Rushmore
Mt Rushmore
Crazy Horse Memorial
Ya see all kinds of strange things when on a ride.
The 4 of us and a camping neighbor. Robert.
me
My bike downtown
Downtown Sturgis
Downtown Sturgis
Downtown Sturgis
Downtown Sturgis
Supposedly Paris Hilton was filming. Of course ya could not get near them since they were filming. I'm not a fan but i recognized her.
Not sure if this is the place but Kat and I got matching tattoos to commemorate the trip.
Me at night
Sturgis at night.
Kat being Kat. :-)
Sturgis at night
Sturgis at night
Sturgis at night
Sturgis at night
I will make another page with motorcycle article but I had to share this one.
The famous Sturgis sign
another example of tank art
We would take the party bus into town so we could go to the bars. One night we went to see Molly Hatchet at the Broken Spoke. i had not eaten all day and a few shots had me really smashed. Luckily Kat stayed with me of I would not have found the party bus for the camp.
One of the surrounding towns
The waterfall at spearfish canyon
The waterfall
Buffalo chip campground, where we went to see Aerosmith. We got there at 1pm to make sure we grapped our space at front of the stage.
One of us would stay with out gear while the rest wandered around.
The intro acts were ok but we wanted Aerosmith.
Aerosmith
Aerosmith
Big crowd. I watched as 4 big men carried a small Native American away from the stage. He was drunk and screaming about the theft of his land. It was clear the big men sympathized with him because they were trying to be really gentle.
It was a good thing we got there early!
Of course a big thunderstorm hit just before Aerosmith was to play. Kat and I hid under my blanket and a 3'rd girl asked if she could join us. Who am I to say no?
The Badlands is one of the places I wanted explore.
It is like the surface of the Moon
There are 2 roads through it. I rode one with Kat and the other alone.
Me at Badlands
This is a little restaurant in N Dakota. Kat wanted to add N Dakota to her bucket list, so we set ut at dawn and headed north. about noon we made it to a small town (Jackson?). Nice people! When we came out we saw a wall cloud to the west and approaching. I did not want to tell Kat what that could mean but I told her we would head west and then south and hopefully the rain would miss us. When we got to camp i got my laptop out and confirmed that an F2 tornado had gone over the area about 20 minutes after we got out of the way. Bear in mind there ain't no place to hide!
A beautiful house that I would love to live in.
No biker event is complete without a Hill climb. We also had a B2 Bomber flyover thanks to a local AF base.
Kat in N dakota before breakfast
My bike with Devils tower in background
Devils tower
Devils tower -You can see it from miles away and it is BIG!
This is Needles Highway - a road through the Black Hills, and it is understandable why the original people here regarded this as a holy land. It is.
Many tunnels through the mtns
I think I once read that this unique rock formation has a counterpart in China.
I watched a greyhound bus make it through this tunnel with inches to spare.
The black hills
The Black Hills
Me riding on Needles Highway
More tunnels
Kat and I rode to Deadwood, then headed back to camp because the sky was getting dark. Wind was picking up so I started clearing things around the cap site and Kat ran to the community building to get us some beer. We were gonna sit it out in one of our tents. Suddenly, Just as Kat gets back the hailstorm starts. Kat panics and I help her get into her tent, while yelling "get under your air mattress". That probably saved us from the big ones. Literally softball sized!!!
An electra-glide next to my bike had its fairing smashed. Kats bike looks like someone took a ball-pean hammer to it. (she got a free paint job out of the insurance) I got a single ding on the gas tank and had someone later airbrish "I survived Sturgis Hailstorm 2009"
Cars and roofs were also damaged. One guy at our camp was hit in the head and had to be taken to a hosital.
Initially Kat was devastated! She was crying and trying to call home. I hugged her and calmed her down Later that evening we rode to town and got the same tattoo. So did anoth person who camped near us.
Took a while to take stock of all the damage. There youtube videos about this famous hailstorm. So I survived a hailstorm, a tornado (almost) and years later a hurricane! My bucket list for disasters is quite full!
The larger hailstones lingered into the evening.
My neighbors bike. That stuff comes down really fast and was moving at an angle. Once I was asfe and I knew Kat was safe I tried to find my camera, damn - i left it on the bike (but it was unharmed)
An apple took a direct hit!