Sturgis Day 1: The Road North

Today began the pilgrimage to Sturgis, SD, for the 75th annual motorcycle rally. As we usually do, we stayed at Lin's house last night so we could get an early start this morning. As anyone who has traveled with us knows, anything before noon is an early start. This morning, we were out of the driveway around 9:30-ish. We had lunch in Cheyenne at a little Mexican place on Dell Range before gassing the bikes and heading north on US Hwy 85 toward Torrington, WY.

The word of the day: Wind. After leaving Cheyenne, the wind was mostly behind us, but as the day wore on, we caught more crosswinds. Nothing as bad as what we experienced in Nevada last month, but enough to make us take note.

We saw more traffic heading toward the Black Hills today than we have in past years, but that's to be expected considering the anniversary. At our gas stop in Lusk, WY, we met a nice young man, Jacob Waldo, who was heading to his very first Sturgis rally. He asked to join us since he wasn't sure where exactly he was going. He rode with us as far as the rest area at Mule Creek Junction before we parted ways.

We made sure that Jacob had a rally map and directions to Sturgis before he took the highway north to Newcastle. I hope he was able to find a place to camp.

We stopped at Woolly's Western Grill in Hot Springs for dinner before gassing the bikes one last time before finishing the ride into Rapid City. Instead of our usual digs in Caputa, south of the airport, our camper has moved. Genevieve and Dave bought a house in Box Elder, so here we are.

Tomorrow we pop the camper up and get settled in here at the new digs (we're on air mattresses in one of the bedrooms tonight), then we brave the crowds. This should be interesting.