Our night at Rock Cut State Park was pretty quiet, given the crowded campsite—not that we could hear much while the air conditioner was on. We rose fairly early but not early enough to avoid a wait in line for showers. We left around 8 AM and continued north on I-39, quickly crossing into Wisconsin. I-39 merged with I-90 and then with I-94. Our original intent was to continue on I-94 which would take us up to Minneapolis and then west all the way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota but we had a change of plans.
As we were trundling along at our gas-saving pace, we kept being passed by lots of motorcycles: groups in formation, bikes in pairs, solo bikes, bikes on trailers, Class A toy haulers with tattooed arms hanging out the windows, even a group of seven female bikers (Harleys all) followed by two sag wagons. We figured that there might be a rally in Wisconsin. Then we saw the guy with the Sturgis sign taped to his tailbag. Sturgis, the South Dakota mother of all motorcycle mega-rallies. A quick Google search on the iPad (mobile Internet access is handy) showed us that the 72nd Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally starts on Monday—and it is practically on the way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park (Okay, so it is 100 miles out of the way).
Now, neither Ellen nor I ever had any real intent on riding to Sturgis to attend the rally (maybe I did back in the 70's when it was relatively small and I was younger). Americade was about our limit this year, where the attendance is about 50,000. Sturgis was attended by 415,000 last year—and mostly Harleys. Why would we go out of our way to see such madness?
But how could I resist? (Ellen isn't quite as keen, but is a good sport—after all her first bike was a Buell, so those women who passed us today were sort of her sisters-in-arms). So we decided to alter our course and take I-90 rather than I-94, stop at Badlands National Park, and then cruise through Sturgis in Speedy on Monday, the first official rally day, on our way north to Theodore Roosevelt NP. Take the pictures, buy the the t-shirt, get the tattoo ... well, maybe not the tattoo.
The rest of the day was spent leisurely cruising along I-90, being passed by motorcycles. There was only one thunderstorm, which started while we were stopped at a rest area having lunch. While we watched the wet bikers pull in and huddle under the eaves of the rest stop building waiting for the rain to stop, we realized that it was sometimes better to travel long distances in Speedy than on the bikes. It was my turn to drive in the rain and we pulled away leaving the huddled masses behind, since we knew they would pass us eventually and they did. Once the rain ended, the hills and prairies of Wisconsin and Minnesota were mostly green fields of corn and soybeans and grazing cattle. But here too, massive wind farms rose out of the fields. We saw at least a half-dozen different wind farms as we passed through Minnesota—and they were all spinning away. Wind energy is definitely taking off on the plains.
We crossed into South Dakota in the late afternoon and finally arrived at Mitchell, SD, just before sunset, where we have parked for the evening in the Mitchell Cabelas RV parking lot in the midst of a bunch of Class As, an Earth Roamer and, right beside us, a Roadtrek 200 towing motorcycles. Tomorrow it is on to Badlands NP.
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