It’s snowing like mad tonight, which made me decide it is the perfect night to sit in front of the fire and remember summer. Here’s another post about Sturgis 2013:

Besides shopping, Sturgis week is about scenic rides, of course, and as a passenger of a rider I trust, I was free to enjoy the scenery.

All week long we rode past photographers snapping away, always with a big sign letting you know which website to check in search of your photo. I bought this one, because it absolutely captures our riding experience: me relaxing on the back, David eyes forward with laser focus. The road you see in the background is where we just were about three seconds before this shot was taken. Iron Mountain Road is stitched together with little curliques of wooden bridges, which I loved–David, not so much.

All in-motion riding photos are taken with my little pocket-sized Nikon CoolPix. Love my Canon DSLR, so it lives in a case until we STOP.

Needles Highway was similar. The passengers were snapping photos non-stop. The drivers were white-knuckling it through all the hairpin turns, trying not to overbalance and lay down the bike if someone ahead happened to stop suddenly. There was a lot of traffic, mostly Harleys, but also a few dazed-looking out-of-towners in sedans and station-wagons, no doubt wishing they’d picked a different week for their vacation. So there were occasional sudden slow-downs and you REALLY did not want those to happen in the middle of a hairpin turn. It wouldn’t have been catastrophic, because speeds are so low on sharp turns, but it wouldn’t have been fun either, and there’s a fine line between too fast and too slow on a curve when you’ve got 1200 leaning pounds of Harley, luggage, passenger and self.

But when the traffic stretched out a bit, it was just plain beautiful.

Yes, I know I should be adding to the category “Countdown to Departure” but that’s mostly packing, and packing is BORING, and TEDIOUS, and a lot of work . . . and . . . I haven’t actually done any packing yet–David is the hero who has done all the packing so far.

I feel super virtuous simply granting permission for something to be donated or thrown away.

So instead, I thought I should create a new category to document our various Harley adventures over the past couple of years, because dear reader,  we went to STURGIS this past  August — How many people can say that? (Well, actually, hundreds of thousands, but not people WE know.) And we loved it!

Sturgis turned out to be an absolute festival of people-watching and talking to those whose paths we might otherwise never have crossed. One of these was a young woman tending bar in downtown Sturgis, who is a grad student at DU (Denver University) the rest of the year (lured to Sturgis week by promises of huge tips). Her response to the question, “How much do you get for serving body shots (Google it) to all these drunks?” — “Not enough,” delivered (and received) with a small shared grimace. It was a tiny moment of connection with another human trying to get by. Decided to give her a big tip, no body shot required.

The scenery itself was stunning, but more on that later.

Another memorable non-riding adventure was catching the shuttle bus (not stupid enough to ride a motorcycle with alcohol in the system) out to Full Throttle Saloon, widely known as the largest, most famous biker bar on the planet. The door attendants were collecting the $10 cover charge with metronome-like rhythm, as bikers continued to stream in, and we wondered, exactly how many people can fit into this bar? We needn’t have worried. It was the size of a small town, complete with multiple live-music venues, indoor and outdoor seating (and mostly standing), even an aerial trick-riding bike show. For the cover charge, we were entitled to a “complimentary” (read “pre-paid”) shot of “S’loonshine” which was available in various flavors. I recommend the peach. Strawberry was disappointing. I didn’t try any others, so can’t offer an opinion. Two was enough for me, even riding a shuttle bus.

We weren’t actually there very long, because we had to catch the shuttle back to Sturgis in time to catch another shuttle back to Deadwood (where we and the rest of our group had hotel rooms). But we were there long enough to allow one of our group (not me) to check off a bucket list item by dancing (fully clothed, I promise) on a bar at Sturgis. She actually earned a few tips and many cheers and smiles. (Regardless, still not on my bucket list.)

Trudging back to the rendez-vous with the shuttle bus in the pouring rain through an unpaved parking lot (mud) gave me a vicarious Woodstock Moment (too young to have been there in ’69) and made me feel edgy and cool, but mostly WET and uncomfortable and rather chilled, to be completely honest. Whatever. It’s not bad as a (slightly edited) memory.

The next day we did actually ride the Harleys into town (see photo of David above, where we scored a parking spot on Main Street). Mostly, besides showing off your Harley,  drinking, and wearing rather less clothing than is generally considered appropriate (I’ll let you ask Google for those photos), Sturgis is about shopping.

David and I both bought patches for our leather vests. Check out this photo of the grandmotherly type sewing patches on at her sewing machine with SKULL affixed to the side. Excuse me? What? (That’s my vest on the back of her chair, next in line, and David’s under mine.)

We do love experiencing the unexpected, and Sturgis was definitely that. To paraphrase Arnold, we’ll be back.