My Pilgrimage to Sturgis Part IV

“My Pilgrimage to Sturgis” is a multi-part story chronicling my trip to the 75^th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Week.

Part IV - Mount Rushmore, Iron Mountain Road, and Needles Highway:

Our second day in The Black Hills started with a trip from our campground in Custer State Park to Mount Rushmore.  Once again expecting that an early start would allow us to beat the crowds, we departed camp around 7:00 AM.  We took Highway 16A, which is also known as Iron Mountain Road.  It’s a fun, scenic road full of twists, turns, pigtail, split roads, and one-lane tunnels.  There are three points along the way where you can clearly make out Mount Rushmore… about a quarter of the way up, if you look across a huge meadow, you can just see the fact that the mountain had been altered… around the halfway point, you go around a bend and see Rushmore as you look through the one-lane tunnel… and the final time is also as you look through a one-lane tunnel.  This well-thought road does a wonderful job of building anticipation for how truly magnificent Rushmore will be when you finally arrive.

Once you get to Mount Rushmore, the thing that’s most striking is that pictures don’t do it justice.  It’s huge.  Each face is approximately 60 feet high.  The monument features a brief movie that discusses the making of the monument, which advances the sense of awe you feel as you gaze upon the faces of the Presidents.  There, of course, is a gift shop where you can purchase souvenirs, and on the day we were there, a man who actually helped build Mount Rushmore was there for a book signing/Q&A session.  He had a sign on his desk that said “No, it wasn’t scary.  No, it wasn’t fun.  It was hard work.”  He talked about periods where he wasn’t paid on time, but also pointed out the fact that he was working during The Great Depression, and he got fed, so he wasn’t upset about delayed paychecks.

The Mandatory Mount Rushmore Picture

In total, we spent about three hours at Mount Rushmore.  By the time we left, the biker horde of bikers was descending on the monument.  We drove back to camp, and I informed the wife that I needed to go for a ride.  She understood and said that she was going to drive around the countryside while I rode.

My ride lasted about three hours.  I started by hitting Needles Highway, a road famous for its granite spires and its twists and turns.  Like Iron Mountain Road, there are one-lane tunnels and plenty of pull-outs that allow for scenic stops.  Since I did the ride later in the day, I shared the experience with thousands of my fellow bikers.  At one stop, I was asked by a group to take their picture with them all in the background, and they gladly returned the favor.  If you ever get to The Black Hills, I highly suggest hitting Needles Highway, especially if you’re visiting on a bike.

 Needles Highway

After Needles, I still wanted to ride some more, so I rode Iron Mountain Road.  (My first trip was in the van with the wife.)  This ride also was later in the day, so it too was heavily populated with bikers.  This prevented me from riding as aggressively as I wanted, but the slower ride allowed me to enjoy the journey.  In all honesty, I like Iron Mountain Road better than I like Needles Highway.  This statement isn’t implying that Needles wasn’t fun… it’s just that I enjoyed riding Iron Mountain Road more.  It’s more challenging… it’s longer, and it’s more technical.

Once I finished riding Iron Mountain Road, I met the wife back at our campsite, and we spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other’s company.  We made a lot of memories that day, and expressed to one another how much we were enjoying our time together.

My Pilgrimage to Sturgis Part III

“My Pilgrimage to Sturgis” is a multi-part story chronicling my trip to the 75^th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Week.

Part III - A Day in Sturgis:

On our first full day in The Black Hills, the wife and I forayed into Sturgis, SD.  Sturgis, after all, was the official reason for the trip.  It stood to reason that it’s the first place we’d go.  We left Custer State Park somewhere between 6:30 AM and 7:00 AM. On our way out of Custer, there was a light fog rising from the roadside creek and fields, and we passed a small group of Pronghorn Antelope standing on the shoulder of the road.  After the hour-long ride, we arrived in Sturgis between 7:30 AM and 8:00 AM.  We were on vacation, so we didn’t keep close track of the time.

Despite the fact that we got to Sturgis early in the morning, Main Street was completely filled with motorcycles, and it took us about 30 minutes to find a parking space.  In the end, we decided that it was more convenient to pay for a parking spot a couple of blocks away from the main drag than it was to search for free parking.  No big deal.  In fact, I kind of expected it.

After parking, we walked to the aforementioned Main Street.  This is the point where I should mention that Sturgis was effectively another tourist trap.  I expected this, but not to the extent I experienced.  Even the Sturgis Harley dealership was nothing but T-shirts.  It didn’t have a single bike on display.  Main Street was nothing but souvenir shops, with nothing to really differentiate one from another, and the occasional bar thrown in for good measure.  Strips of road that served as alleys during the off season were converted into temporary stores for the rally.  The streets were lined with awesome, beautiful, ugly, abused motorcycles.  (This part I expected.)  But the bikes did not appear to be owned by biker gang members or hot biker chicks.  Judging by the people walking the streets and flooding the shops, these bikes were owned by 40-something and 50-something middle-aged men and women, like my wife and me, who were also there to see what the fuss was about, and to check an item off of their respective bucket lists.  I stopped into one of the bars to drown my disillusionment.

My wife and I spent the next couple of hours fulfilling our duty as tourists, looking for just the right memorabilia for ourselves and to take home to our family.  I bought a sleeveless button down shirt that demonstrated that I was, indeed, in Sturgis for the 75^th Annual Bike Week, and a patch for my biker jacket proclaiming “I rode mine.”  It took several hours for us to find everything we were looking for.

I don’t want to paint this as strictly a tourist trap, or as a disappointment.  That’s not the case.  As I mentioned, there were thousands of bikes on the main drag.  Many of these bikes were remarkable.  There was one that was completely covered in cow hide and leather.  (By cow hide, I mean that it still had the fur.)  There was another (trike) that looked like a Cadillac.  Another one was decked out to pay homage to John Deere.  Alas, though, there were no bare titties bouncing their way down Main Street.  The closest we came to seeing that was a young woman in a lingerie store who wore a G-string and pasties for her work clothes, and another young woman who was scantily dressed as a she-devil.  But it wasn’t a drunken free-for-all.  In fact it was pretty sedate.

But after four or five hours, we decided that we’d had enough, and we headed back to camp.  On the way out, we discovered that our decision to go to Sturgis early was the right one.  As we left, we saw that traffic was backed up from Main Street all the way to the I-90 freeway exit.  Those poor bastards had a long wait in store to get to Downtown Sturgis.

A few pics from Sturgis...

 

My Pilgrimage to Sturgis Part II

“My Pilgrimage to Sturgis” is a multi-part story chronicling my trip to the 75^th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Week.

Part II - Getting There is Part of the Fun:

As you will recall from Part I, I rode to Sturgis.  I rode a Sportster.  Apparently, relatively few people actually ride to Sturgis anymore.  Most people take their bikes on a trailer, or in a toy hauler.  And significantly fewer people ride Sportsters.  I saw maybe two other Sportsters on the road to and from Sturgis, and only saw a couple dozen in the area.  I really don’t get this, because getting there is half of the adventure.

Let me start out by saying that I know my limits as a rider.  Sturgis is approximately twelve hours from where I live.  While I would be absolutely willing – and comfortable – driving that far, there’s no way that I would ride that far, straight through, on a Sportster.  Sioux Falls, SD is almost exactly half way between my home and Sturgis.  So, the wife and I rode from home to the halfway point, and stayed in a hotel in Sioux Falls.  This worked out just about perfectly.  After 300+ miles on the skinny Sportster seat, I was ready to be finished for the day.  Besides, this gave us a precious first day away from the family, and a comfortable last day before we forayed into the “camping” expedition of the Black Hills.

After leaving the Black Hills, it was on to Custer State Park. This was not only a journey of miles; it was also a journey of time.  As I mentioned in my last entry, I have been to the Black Hills before – twice – on family vacations when I was a boy.  So, in addition to collecting miles, I was also recalling memories as I rode to our destination.

Our first stop after Sioux Falls was Mitchell, the home of The Corn Palace.  The Corn Palace probably sounds really, ummm… corny.  It is.  But it’s also really pretty cool.  There’s a lot of history to the place, and it’s really artistic.  The Corn Palace is a more than a tourist trap, though it’s definitely that.  It’s also a historic live performance theater where the likes of Jim Nabors, Lawrence Welk and Red Skelton have performed.  And the art is really cool too.  They use corn, corn silk, and other agricultural products to create large murals that act as a tribute to America’s agricultural history, and the history of South Dakota.  Though not an all-day trip, it’s absolutely worth a couple of hours of your time to stop in Mitchell.

The Corn Palace

The next major stop after Mitchell was Wall, SD.  Wall is primarily famous for Wall Drug, which is a huge – and I do mean HUGE – tourist shop.  My size estimates may be a bit off, but Wall Drug is a series of interlocking shops that total approximately a full square block of shopping area.  The vast majority of it, of course, plugs Wall Drug.  There’s bound to be something for everyone, whether it be a “free glass of water,” “$.10 coffee,” a place to eat, a stuffed Jackalope, or just a place to use the bathroom, Wall Drug, though kitschy, is truly something to behold.

 Wall Drug

After leaving Wall, it was time for our final leg of the trip, which brought us to Custer State Park.  Even though it was the end of the day, once I hit the scenic, winding roads of Custer State Park, I was energized.  The road-weariness left my mind, and the aches and pains of long-distance riding left my body.  I was surrounded by the sights of the mountains, and the scents of the forest.  Getting there was absolutely part of the fun.

My Pilgrimage to Sturgis, Part I

“My Pilgrimage to Sturgis” is a multi-part story chronicling my trip to the 75^th Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Week.

Part I - The back story:

I’ve been a serious bike rider for about 9 years.  “Serious,” of course, is a relative term, but to put it in perspective, during riding season, my motorcycle is effectively my only mode of transportation.  I drive when I need to carry more stuff than I can fit on the bike, and I drive when it’s raining or too cold.  Aside from that, I’m on my bike.  I also take frequent, short jaunts around the countryside on the bike.  I average 3000 to 3500 miles on my bike each year.

My bike is a 2006 Harley-Davidson Sportster 883, which I converted into a 1200 in 2012.  I am the original owner, and I treat it like one of my children.  (I love it, take care of it, and beat on it from time to time.  [End tongue-in-cheek comparison])  My two daughters, by the way, love riding almost as much as I do.  My older daughter has been a passenger on my bike since she was 13, and my younger daughter started riding with me before she was 10.  She bought her first bike at 18.

I’m not exactly sure when, but somewhere along the line, I decided that I needed to make a pilgrimage to Sturgis.  This was partly to see what all the fuss was about, a little to get back to the Black Hills, where I vacationed with my family when I was a kid, and somewhat to take an extended trip on my motorcycle… to test my endurance and find out how much I could punish my body.

Last fall, I found out that this year is – was – the 75^th Anniversary of the Sturgis Rally.  I decided this was the year to go.  I started making plans in February.  I chose to stay in Custer State Park, and even though I made reservations six months in advance, I got the absolute last site available in the park.  I talked to my wife, and even though she doesn’t ride, she agreed to go along with me.  In the end, this actually worked out quite well.  She drove our minivan, and I alternated between following her and leading the way.  We slept on a memory foam mattress in the minivan.

With the basic plan in place, I planned the overall itinerary.  I decided that riding the 750 miles from home to Custer State Park was too far to realistically go in one shot – I am riding a Sportster, after all, so we decided to stay in Sioux Falls, SD, on the way out and on the way back.  That’s almost exactly the halfway point.  We also chose to visit Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park, and Badlands National park during our trip.

Tune in tomorrow, where I will talk about “getting there.”

Finally Free

Late last month I received the official notification terminating my child support.  I'm going to say up front, that I paid a pittance in child support for the last couple of years, and for the most part it's actually my ex-wife's fault.  A couple of years after our divorce, both of our financial situations changed.  My wages went down considerably, and hers went up slightly.  I informed the ex that I'd be requesting a child support review.  I also informed my then-new wife that I'd be requesting a child support review as well, and she somehow managed to talk me out of it.  The ex must have taken my lack of action as an indication that I determined a child support review would not turn out in my favor, because after a couple of months, Child Support Recovery notified me that my ex was requesting a review.  I was positively giddy at the aspect of her action coming back to bite her in the ass, and it did... in a big way.  My child support dropped by over 50%.  As a direct result of what I can only assume is my ex-wife's greed, I spent several thousand fewer dollars in child support.

This story kind of brings me to my next point.  I think that the whole issue of child support and custody need to be completely revisited.  Over the years, there has been significant progress in fathers' rights when it comes to custody and visitation.  Unfortunately, however, we fathers are still seen as little more than walking wallets when it comes to supporting our children.  WIth this in mind, I'd like to propose a radical departure from the status quo.  I propose that parents be given joint legal custody, joint physical care, and no child support as the starting point.  I know I'm going to piss a lot of people off with this crazy idea, but hear me out...

It's taken as common knowledge that it's in the best interest of children to have both parents actively involved in the upbringing.  By starting off with 50/50 custody as the assumption, we're already looking out for the best interest of the kids.  There should, of course, be wide latitude for variation to address parental preferences, geographical separation, and cases of abuse.  But 50/50 should be the starting point.

Having no child support is a tremendous incentive for keeping reluctant parents involved in their kids' lives.  You can choose to spend more time with the kids, or you can choose to spend more money on your kids.  Is this an ideal motivation for uninvolved parents?  No.  But it's better than the status quo.

Here's my biggest point:  Child support is a disincentive to work; and the larger the percentage sent to child support, the greater disincentive to work.  Why would I work crazy amounts of overtime if half of what I make is going to child support... especially if I never see the kid(s)?!?  Why would I try to get a higher paying job when I know that my ex-wife is just going to request a child support review and take away half of my raise?  On the flip side of the coin, why would the recipient of child support want to go out and work more, or find a better paying job?  Child support helps out plenty.  And if the recipient goes out and finds a job, there's always a chance -- a high chance -- that child support payments will decrease.  The state talks about the cycle of poverty, and how entitlements contribute to it... well here's something I never hear discussed.  It must be some sort of taboo... kind of like the prospect of overhauling Social Security.  By the way, children observe the results of this disincentive.  How do you think it influences their work ethic?

I don't expect any changes overnight, but I would like you to consider and discuss my thoughts.  What do I have right?  What am I missing?

Now I Know

My daughter came to me today with a connundrum.  She has a longstanding friend who recently told her that he's developed romantic feelings for her.  When he initially told her this, she acknowledged his feelings, but said that she thought of him as a friend.  Since then, she's come to the conclusion that she has feelings for him as well.  She asked me what to do.  I told her to go for it.  She's concerned that things won't work out, and that she'll lose the friendship.  I still said that she should go for it.

When I was younger, I had the same thing happen to me.  I met Debbie my sophmore year in high school.  She was a freshman.  The first time I talked to her, I wanted to be more than friends, but she put me in the friend zone.  I was okay with this.  Over the years, we spent hours on the phone, hung out together all the time, and shared everything... except romance.  When I graduated high school and went into the Marine Corps, we still kept in touch... letters, phone calls, and the mandatory visits when I was home on leave.

When I was in the Persian Gulf, I called her one night while I was on liberty.  We talked for about 30 minutes, and during the call she said the magic words... "I love you."  I still remember it like it was yesterday.  I laughed out loud and said "WHAT?!?"  Yeah, that totally came out wrong.  I immediately apologized and clarified that my laughter and dismay was out of pure joy.  I had waited years to hear those words from her.

We corresponded incessantly during the remainder of my deployment, and when I returned to the States, I immediately went home... home to her.  We were inseparable until I had to return to duty, but we maintained a long distance relationship.  I flew her out to see me... the one and only time I did that for anyone.  We spent another glorious week together.

After that, things started falling apart.  I was a conservative member of the Armed Services, and she was a liberal Political Science major.  Both of us believed that our world view was superior to the other's... mine because I was out living in the real world and experiencing things she couldn't see in school... hers because she was receiving higher education, and I just wasn't enlightened.  Our conversations were increasingly confrontational, and then less frequent.  Eventually, I came home on leave again; but I knew that we had to end things.

When things ended, we went our separate ways.  Within a year, I got married and had my first child.  She went to law school and became an attorney.  As you'd expect, things were never the same between us afterwards.  I still called and sent cards for a few years, but eventually we drifted apart.  For a long time, I suspected that I broke her heart, but years later I learned that I probably loved her more than she loved me.

To this day, I occasionally wonder how she's doing.  Don't get me wrong, I know she's successful, and I strongly suspect that she's happy.  That's not really the point though.  The point is that I knew what I wanted.  I hung in there.  I won her heart... for a short time.  In the long run, things didn't work out, and we went our separate ways.  With all of that said though, I don't regret taking the chance.  Realistically speaking, we probably would have gone our separate ways whether or not we made the leap and tried a romantic relationship.  This way though, I will not spend the rest of my life asking "What if...?"  Now I know.

A Quick Look at the Manchester Whitewater Park

I took my wife and grandson on a brief excursion to Iowa's newest water attraction, the Manchester Whitewater Park.  Since I had the boy with me, I didn't run the rapids, but I did stop to take a good look at the park's layout; I surveyed each drop, and watched a few paddlers enjoying themselves.  I also saw a couple of folks on inner tubes, and even witnessed a couple running the rapids in their open canoe.  (They made it through the first five drops and spilled on the last one.)

The river flow was low and slow today.  The Manchester USGS gauge showed a depth of about 4.1 feet, and a flow of about 160 CFS.  Higher water will make a tremendous difference from what I'm reporting today.

I had a great initial impression walking the length of the park.  There is ample parking at the upper end of the park, with easy access to the water.  Furthermore, there is a sidewalk along the entire length of the park, and you can quickly and easily put in directly upstream or downstream from all of your favorite features.

During the small amount of time I observed boaters in the water, I saw people primarily hanging around the second and fifth drop.  This is partially because there were people fishing on the first and last hole.  Apparently the guy on the first drop was kind of rude.  He was fishing with a treble hook, on the edge of the wave, and refused to move his line, even when people were trying to just run though to get to the other features.  The folks on the last drop were significantly more friendly... but then again, they were actually catching fish.

Last time I was in Charles City, people were wondering about the differences between the two parks.  All drops in Manchester are significantly narrower than the drops at the Charles City Whitewater park, leaving noticeably less room to roam across a given feature.  I estimate that each feature was about seven to eight feet wide today.  In my opinion though, this offset by the increased number of features available in the Manchester park.  The Manchester park is a good 50% longer than Charles City.  This means a significantly longer walk from the last feature back upstream to the first, but it's not a difficult walk by any stretch of the imagination.  And again, there are more features, so it's quite foreseeable that you'll take fewer walks back upstream in Manchester than you will in Charles City.

Here are some photos of the drops for your review...

Notice the ease of access to the drop, by walking along the rocks to the actual feature.  Each drop has this type of easy access.

This is the first drop.  The wife and grandson in the picture should give you a frame of reference for the size of the wave and feature.  All drops are roughly this wide.

Second Drop

Third Drop

Third Drop, closer up

This isn't an actual feature, but it has the potential to be fun.  In low water, you will drag going through this.

Fourth Drop

Fifth Drop

Sixth Drop

There is also a place to rent kayaks and tubes

If you're looking for more of a paddling oriented review of the park, feel free to look at this YouTube video.