We had planned to ride as a group with the Harley Owners Chapter 4800 of Greenville SC to Sturgis, which was planned the year before and many people were securing their accommodations... Then the pandemic happened! The uncertainty of the ride was down the drain and many people thought it was going to cancel. Our chapter made the decision to go ahead and keep it going for those who wanted to go.
Our Road Captain Bob took his time scheduling the grueling 3 day trek from Greenville SC to Custer State Park in SD. We have scheduled a hotel night for every day of the trip and in Custer State Park SD.
Day 1: we took it easy and made our way to the Outskirts of Lexington KY for the night.
Day 2: we traveled to Le Claire, IA, to check out the pickers (Frank and Mike) rusty gold they say. Their shop was more like a retail store for t-shirts and hats then for stuff they show on tv.
Day 3: we made our way all the way to Custer State Park where we ended our first 1670 miles.
Day 4: we started with a visit to the Black Hills HD Dealership where all the vendors and crowds. Which I wore my mask all the time and stayed away from many bar or group events so as not to be exposed.
Day 5 - 8: We mostly rode within 250 mile range each day or a tank of gas whichever came first. We stayed a total of 5 days in South Dakota, went one day to Sturgis, visited the bars and saw buffalo just about every morning.
The video above is a compilation of all the rides we did. Custer to Mt Rushmore via Needles Hwy Loop, Custer to Rapid City SD, Custer to Badlands National Park, Custer to Sundance, Custer to the Devils Tower, Spearhead and other places around. Unfortunately, my front camera went flying on the 7th day of the trip and I had to switch cameras as I lost several hours of footage. I had to make do and try to salvage what I had downloaded the prior night.
Day 9: we got caught on the rain sans rain gear, the temperature dropped from 80 to 50 in no time we were shivering from the cold rain. That's the Blackhills for you, unpredictable and hot and cold in the summer!
Our group stayed together for the most part and some of us decided to venture different directions and ride on smaller groups to see more as we did with the Falls of Spearhead and Devils Tower.
Day 10: we took to the road again and made our way back to South Carolina via Kansas City, Missouri and on to Cleveland to check out some sites of interest for folks in our group.
It was a fantastic trip, we did not get sick nor had any accidents, just a couple rain days and hardware malfunctions on a couple of the Harleys. Overall, it was a lot of fun and camaraderie all the way around! I highly recommend taking a trip to SD and not necessarily for Sturgis but for the open skies and the open road, just be prepared for anything... I mean anything!
Cheers! See you on the road again!!
Emilio Porras
President - Rotary Club of Mauldin
Associate Member - Rotary Club of Motorcycling Rotarians
Member - IFMR-NA (ifmr-na.org)
Casa Colibri Board of Directors - http://casacolibri.