Not Just Tens of Thousands!

You simply WOULD NOT believe this! Apparently there are 400,000 to 500,000 motorcycles in Rapid City and Sturgis. We were bumper to bumper with them from 100 miles out and there was a steady stream of them heading out of town. One biker told us that they were heading west looking for a place to stay. I think we must have found the last motel room in an entire 100+ mile radius. It's a hokey little walk-up motel room, but seems clean at least -- and all for a mere $165 for the night! I would expect it to be about $49.00 regularly. It was pretty funny driving into town.

There were motorcycles all around -- in front, in back, and beside us. There were solid lines of bikers on the side roads, the overpasses and on the crossroads. Because the area is reasonable open, we could see a long way off. It truly looked like lines of ants totally covering the area! There are fancy big bikes with scarey riders; there are ordinary bikes with ordinary riders; there are many couples -- some dressed appropriately and some dressed in bathing suits!

There is no helmet law in this state for adults, so I would say that more than half of the riders and passengers had their hair blowing in the wind. The law does say that the handlebars must be no higher than the shoulders, but, for sure, there are some who are thumbing their noses at that. We talked to a middle aged guy from Wisconsin here in the parking lot. He was so impressed that we had come all the way from BC! Then he and his wife invited us to head out to some place that has amazing steaks. (We might go out for supper tonight, but probably won't go to a steak house.) Another fellow answered Lila's questions about what went on at this rally by just telling her that there is lots of beer. I suspect we might not get too much sleep tonight because our motel is full of noisy bikes. All they same, there is a great party atmosphere -- lots of laughing. Almost all the riders are compliant with the rules of the road and I don't think I saw any of them speeding excessively -- for one thing, the roads are too crowded to speed!

The motorcycles have dominated the day, but earlier we drove through fantastic countryside. Leaving Butte (later than usual), we drove over another pass or two through forested, mining-like terrain into rolling, undulating wide wide valleys, yellow with hay fields and range pasture. The ground looked as if it had been folded, much as a quilt on a poorly made bed might look. Later we drove through the even wider Gallatin valley -- beautiful and prosperous looking ranch country. Just west of Bozeman, we found the bakery that I loved so much on previous trips. I though it was west of Billings and had been unable to find it the last couple of trips along I-90. We bought wicked goodies and ate them with the coffee we brought from our motel breakfast. The yellow fields soon turned into fuzzy sage green as we moved into the cowboy country of Wyoming. Now we thought the land looked as if it were covered with mold and along with very dry range land, we saw numerous oil wells bobbing their heads up and down. Interestingly, along much of this "Big Sky Country", there are pointy little hills rising from the rolling plains. They look a bit like upside down ice cream cones -- maybe like the chocolate maple buds we used to get as kids.

OK. That's enough for now. You'll be sick of reading all this nonsense.