August 11.
Today is Saturday and there is only one day of the rally left, I have seen many groups of people arrive and stay for a few days and then leave. The truth is that there is no possible way to see all there is to see and to attend all the shows and activities they have. Even if you stay at the rally for a full week as I have done. There has been hill-climb events twice during the past week which I did not see and then there was a special staged burn out contest and many more activities just too much too mention. I must confess that to watch a burn out contest does not really interest me because I see it back home all the time.
I have heard various numbers from people about the attendance this year, some have told me that there are 500,000 bikes here and others have said 400,000, but one thing is for sure, everybody agrees that there is a much bigger turn out than last year and all I can say is that there are one hell of a lot of people here. Normally I go to McDonald's to use the Wi-Fi and during this past week, they have been so full it is not even possible to get a table and the people are standing five and six deep in queues at the counter, it is just packed full. On one night I had to wait three hours to get a table. They simply serve all meals in packets because they cannot cope with orders for take away or inside, and it is like that all day, I have even been there up to mid-night and it was still just so full. A lot of people stay in camp sites which are as much as 30 miles out of town, and every day people ride into Sturgis to attend whatever interests them or just to mission around. I have spent a lot of time sitting and listening to bands playing, a lot of them in Sturgis itself are heavy rock and roll and so load it is impossible to think, but if you ride just a short distance out of town there are often one man bands or two piece bands signing in bars or in a place especially prepared for the rally. So I have spent most of my time riding around in the Black Hills and enjoying the country side and just enjoying the bikes and the atmosphere and to be honest, I have not spent much time in the actual city center because it is just too crowded and busy and almost impossible to ride any distance because the queues at a stop street or robot are often half a block long. On one day during the week I rode out to a town called Lead, it is an old gold mining town and there is a massive big open cast pit where they mined the gold, it was interesting to see that they used a train which was driven by compressed air to haul the ore out of the mine, (it had to run on compressed air because a steam engine would have made too much smoke in the mine shaft) on another day I rode out to have a look at Devils Tower which was very interesting, it was used to make a movie and I think it was called Close Encounter or something to that effect. Apparently there are rock climbers who climb up the face of the rock outcrop and one of them had just fallen a short time before I got there, so the whole area had been closed off and I was not allowed to walk up the path to the base of the tower, but it was still impressive to see. The ride back was a little hectic because there was a very bad thunder storm and we had to stop and wait for the storm to pass, but there was a lot of evidence of a massive downpour as I got closer to a town called Spear Fish.
At the start of my ride much earlier that day, I had noticed a really good example of the post boxes which are all set up in the rural areas for the US mail, so I pulled over and took a number of pictures of the post boxes and also a close up of a really nice new one because it had an inscription on it which related to the authority of the US mail and I found it interesting, anyhow I had then carried on riding, later stopping to take a picture of a ranch entrance which had a good example of a graphic illustration, probably of what the ranch had as its core business or possibly just an illustration of what the ranch owner liked, I have seen a number of them at ranch gates and even some towns have them as you enter and exit the town. I think they must be laser cut because they are very intricate and very well done. A little later I saw a big gathering of bikes on the side of the road and decided to investigate and it was a saloon called the Stonehouse Saloon, so I went in and there was a really excellent three piece band playing. Almost all the songs were trucking songs and they were all original, written by the singer. The band was called Peewee Moore & The Awful Dreadful Snakes. They were really excellent and probably the best I had heard so far. Anyhow I eventually finished my drink and sat a while longer enjoying the music and then eventually set off once again on my ride. Sometime later I came across a sign which indicated that there was a historical display ahead and I pulled in to have a look, and it was an old coal mine and the infrastructure which was used to sort the coal and feed it down to the lower level was still standing, after taking some more pictures I saddled up again and set of up the road. Reaching a little town of Aladdin, I noticed that the town name indicated that they only had a population of 15 in the town, so I stopped to take a picture of the town sign and then I took a picture of the town from a distance, and while doing this a State Trooper car came riding slowly past and then made a U-turn and stopped some distance away from me, but the fellow just sat there looking at me. Eventually wondering what on earth he was doing I decided to go over and ask him if he wanted to speak to me or if there was a problem or just plain what was going on, well evidently this was a mistake because he gestured wildly for me to remain exactly where I was. By now I had removed my crash helmet and the sun was giving my bald patch a serious roasting. I had during the last few days heard enough stories about these fellows to know that they were not to be trifled with and that to be stopped for any reason at all was to be avoided at all cost, but I was truly puzzled by this development because I was parked well of the road and had not done anything even remotely wrong. After a long wait he eventually climbed out of his car and came slowly over to me, I truly cannot remember exactly what he said but he basically asked where I had come from and what I was doing, so I gave him the run down about my ride from Sturgis, stopping to take photos here and there and listening to the music at the Stonehouse Saloon, eventually ending at the point where I was currently taking a photo of the sign for Aladdin. Did you stop and take some pictures of some post boxes he asks, yes I did I reply, why he asks, so I go into a long explanation that we do not have a system like that in South Africa and that I have observed the US postal service delivering mail on my travels and I found it interesting that they would deliver mail to very remote locations. At which time he then asks to see all my pictures, by now another State Trooper vehicle has pulled up behind his vehicle but this fellow just sits there waiting in his car. I eventually explain about my trip and that I am writing a journal and that I like to take pictures of things which I find interesting and which I can write about, by now my bald patch has started to throb with the burn of the intense midday sun and I am getting seriously cooked. He takes my drivers license and passport and goes back to the vehicle, there is a lot more talk on the radio and from what I could see they have a big computer in the car, I assume some more checks, he comes back and asks me for my full names, back to the car and eventually I guess after a full check and finding that I am not a secret anything just a fellow on holiday, he comes back and gives me my passport and license back. By now he is a lot more relaxed and we start to chat a little, I am able to retrieve my cap out of the bikes top box and the pain subsides just a little, I am sure the top of my head has by now suffered some mortal damage which will require major reconstructive surgery. He tells me that someone had seen me taking pictures of the post boxes and had phoned in to report that a suspicious person was busy with the post boxes, however I had traveled from South Dakota into Wyoming and the report had been made in South Dakota, so they had to contact the Wyoming office and they had dispatched a car to intercept me. I do not know for sure but I suspected that the second car may have been from South Dakota. So it would appear that I was soon to be boxed in and if I recall correctly I seem to remember that he had said something to this effect. I am immensely grateful that it did not come to this because I am sure that being boxed in or coming over a rise and being confronted by a road block of very serious looking State Troopers would have given me sleepless nights for a month.
After all was said and done we had a good chat about South Africa and I took his picture and he mine, and I eventually managed to get my helmet on and made my way into the town to have a look at the only shop there. After visiting the shop and taking some more pictures I was getting ready to head out when a stranger comes over and starts to ask me about my bike etc. Now I immediately find this unusual because in all the time I have been in the USA nobody has ever started a conversation with me and even if I talk to someone they will still never ask where I am from or anything personal, I have found it quite amazing how private the general population are. I tell him my story and we chat a little but somehow it does not feel right, he does not look like a typical biker and although he is wearing a t-shirt his jacket looks wrong, anyhow eventually we say our goodbyes and I ride off, wondering if he was not perhaps also involved in my post box photo incident, I would bet that he was if I was a betting man. Later that evening I go down to the Full Throttle Saloon to take some pictures as I figure it would be a good opportunity due to the heavy thunder storm which has passed over town, and I am correct in my assumption, for once it is not packed from wall to wall and I am able to wonder around and get some nice pictures, I notice a really well built fellow standing close by, a little later after climbing some steps and moving to another level I see him again, I walk around past some stalls and start to climb another flight of stairs but stop half way and turn around, and there he is again just behind me. I stop and look at him and eventually he walks off to the left, could he also be involved in the post box photo incident, I must be getting paranoid. At the end of the day the incident left me with a realization of just how geared up the system really is and the extent and depth of their system. Back home your entire home can be stolen and they do not even bother to come out or sometimes it takes three days to respond, I think of the incident where Sue was attacked at an intersection close to the Airport and her car window was smashed and she was stabbed with a knife, and they did not respond, here they activate forces across state because someone looked suspicious. I sit and think about it for a while and realize that I have truly experienced the two ends of the scale, as much as we do not have enough in SA I wonder if the US system is not possibly a little over the top and the stories I have heard from some of the fellows in the camp ground about bikes being carted off in slings swinging behind trucks and being impounded and many other scary stories may not be so greatly exaggerated as I first thought. Fortunately I am a law abiding fellow so there is no need to worry.
Topic: Freedom in America!!!! (Read 5122 times)
