It took us over 3 hours and 172 miles to finish up but our arrival in Sturgis wasn’t without a challenge today. While South Dakota DOT denies any road construction along US34, we road through about 12 miles of chip-and-seal resurfacing today. (If you’re not familiar with chip-and-seal you should ask Google to show you some examples.) The roads are coated with sand and then rocks and finally by a layer of oily tar. None of those substances are motorcycle friendly or at least not friendly to me and my motorcycle. Plus there is nothing like the odor that comes from fresh tar and grasshoppers baking on a motorcycle engine.

We made it to Sturgis despite the chip-and-seal. We did manage to see an antelope (pronghorn) along the way, demonstrating again why we prefer 2 lane roads to interstate highways. That antelope would have been on somebody’s table if he was close to the interstate. Instead he was living his best antelope life on this 2 lane road in South Dakota.

This isn’t the first visit to Sturgis for any of us and it’s my 5th or 6th time here. It’s a requirement to visit the Harley Dealership to invest some money in $40 t-shirts. We took advantage of their air conditioning to cool off and bought some shirts.

It had been a while since breakfast which consisted of the continental offering at the hotel. It was time for lunch. There is a new place across the street from the dealership – Gas Monkey Garage. We left are trusty bikes parked at the dealership and meandered across to check it out. It turned out that today was their first day of being open to the public. It was a little chaotic. The food was good but our server did not know how to split the check so we handled that chore ourselves.

I should share a piece of information here. We had rented a house on VRBO and after being told that we would receive check-in information two days ago, then 1 day ago, then by noon today, then finally “no later than 4:30” today. We had to kill some time since we were in Sturgis by noon.

The motorcycle museum is only a block from the dealership so we killed off about 45 minutes (and $14 each) to observe a collection of old bikes of various brands. None of us were really in the mood to study the history so we looked for another option. Time for ice cream – finally!!!

One place I knew had ice cream is a store called “Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot and Emma’s Ice Cream Emporium”. (Get it – WTF?) The ice cream was really good but I was getting a little antsy because we hadn’t laid eyes on our motorcycles for a while besides the flies were bad in the ice cream shop. Back to the dealership we went.

The bikes were fine but there was no place to sit to kill some more time. After sitting in the hot sun at a picnic table in front of the dealership we needed someplace cooler to wait. Since the rental house is located in Spearfish, we thought visiting the Spearfish City Park would be a good idea. It took us about 25 minutes to get there from downtown Sturgis. We had just got situated at a nice picnic table in the park when I got the message that the house was ready for our check-in. The time was exactly 4:04. The house was about 8 minutes from the park. Off we went.

The house is listed as air-conditioned. That’s a stretch. There are 4 small window units, 1 in each bedroom that don’t even come close to cooling the house. There is only 1 door key to share among 4 of us. There are a couple of other small issues but I don’t want to dwell on the negatives. We are happy to be in the house and out of the sun. Plus we don’t have to load up all of our luggage for the next few days.

Mason took care of the grocery run and Max went to get us some soft drinks. We resorted to pizza for dinner and all our immediate needs were taken care of (except getting the house cooled down). These guys are great travel companions.

There are a lot of motorcycles in the area already and the rally doesn’t officially start for another 6 days. I was told by one local that people began arriving right after Memorial Day. That might be a stretch.

I might take the day off from riding tomorrow but the guys mentioned riding through Spearfish Canyon. That’s my favorite ride in the Black Hills. If that’s on the agenda, the rest day can wait.