Day Four, Keystone, SD to Wall, SD via Sturgis, 185 Miles

Tuesday, August 10, 2010, another beautiful, clear morning with temperatures in the low 70's. After breakfast we imposed upon the hotel to store our external bags and we headed for Mount Rushmore, just a few minutes away from our hotel in Keystone. What a perfect morning to view the monument, no clouds and no people at 7 AM. I've seen the monument several times over the past 40 years but it never ceases to touch me emotionally. What phenomenal national treasure.

Departing Mount Rushmore, we headed down out of the Black Hills for the motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, SD, some 50 miles away. En route, we stopped at Black Hills Harley-Davidson. Can't seem to pass up a Harley dealer. They had their own vendor event going on. Bill opted for a new helmet there as his old one was crushing his ears after he installed his headset.

By noon we were at the 70th anniversary Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Races. What can I say about Sturgis, BB&B, bikes, boobs and booze. Steve, Bill and Bob are Sturgis virgins, so the veteranos were obligated to indoctrinate them into the fraternity. Girl watching was high on the list of priorities, T shirt shopping a must, and consuming a few adult beverages while judging a wet T shirt contest a responsibility. And, we take our responsibilities very seriously. It was also reported that there may have been a topless bar upstairs from the contest, but I have no confirmation of that I'll admit to as of this writing.

At noon an Air Force B1B bomber made a low pass over main street as part of this year's tribute to our armed forces. It was very loud and very moving.

We departed Sturgis with bags of T shirts and headed back to Keystone to retrieve our bags from the hotel. Having done so, we departed for Wall, SD, our destination for the night, some 70 miles away. We arrived at 5:15 PM, checked into the hotel and were wallowing in the pool like a bunch of walruses by 5:45. It was a welcome relief from the temperatures hovering around 90 degrees and some significant, but not unbearable humidity. After our dip, we dined at the world famous Wall Drug in Wall, SD, headed back to the hotel and went about our individual tasks of downloading pictures and writing our blogs. You can see Steve's blog at http://sreckon.blogspot.com/.

Having spent the majority of the day in Sturgis we only accumulated 185 miles on the clock today.