Sturgis and the Black Hills

          Temperatures are hovering in the high 80s and low 90s… it must be Rally time!

          We’re usually pretty low profile this time of year, preferring to spend these latter years as remote spectators of the Sturgis Rally and Races. We did the biker thing before it was cool… now we prefer a nice shady stream on a hot day!

          We ordered a new computer program named Terrain Navigator Pro South Dakota.  Our expectations are good of this program and we will give you some feedback as we become acquainted with its features.  Bob has some AutoCad experience and our expectations are that it performs in a similar manner, but we are also realistic that this $300 program cannot match a several $1000 app.  We do hope to get our monies’ worth.  Frustrations mount when we try to produce a professional map from the limited available online mapping programs.  You can draw but not label, label but not draw…

          We had a “sweet” experience trying to find a remote claim we are pursuing.  It is either a real drone or will exceed all our expectations, because two trips to the area have failed to get us there! 

          Yesterday we headed out in hot weather, only to have “Old Rusty” overheat and leave us 10 miles short of our goal.  Bob managed to get us within a mile or so of our destination, but continued mechanical problems (probably some bad fuel) brought us limping back home.  Some very charitable women from Rapid City gave us a cooler full of bottled water and we thank them for that!

          The “up” side of the trip was at almost every stop to “cool” the engine, there were wild raspberries for the picking!  There’s a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, you just have to learn what to look for!  I commandiered this photo from Steve... thanks!

          Back to the Rally, which is a pot of gold of another sort.  Every year the population of Sturgis swells from several thousand to several hundred thousand.  This puts an enormous load on local services but also puts an enormous amount of money into the Black Hills economy.  We’re risking a guess of a moderate Rally since the numbers appear to be less at this point.

          We noticed, while sitting alongside the road letting Old Rusty cool, that the average biker looks to be mid-40s to 50 years old, and right now the car and bike numbers are about even.  Vendor tents are less in the town of Sturgis, but that may well be due to a new ordinance controlling time element on vendor tents.  There’s also a lot of talk about use of the name “Sturgis,” so don’t tell amybody…

          Our friends with the claim being claimjumped have received a reply from the claimjumpers, so as soon as we get a copy of that reply we will comment accordingly.

          So watch for our review of the new computer program and more insight into claimjumping!