Friday – Rapid City, South Dakota
Hi everyone, I need to clear up some confusion, so I will do it here and now.
Sorry for the long introduction, but this will stay here for at least a week, so if you have read it once, scroll down for the days update, which starts with the non bold text 🙂
I am receiving a lot of offers of help, chat, food, rides, beer etc and not in that particular order either 🙂 I appreciate all of the offers and I apologise to those who I have missed or gone past without dropping in to say G’day. I always acknowledge and answer all messages, whether they are emails, comments here, PMs from forums or whatever. The only issue seems to be, I sometimes get them after I have been and gone in certain areas. So, to make things a lot easier I will outline a few facts on where I am, where I could be heading and an explanation on what you see here.
For a start I am always going to be behind in the blog, usually two days, maybe more if I do not have net access. So what it says as the date, place etc at the top of the page is out of date, ignore it, it is correct for the time I was there, but I am not there now 🙂 For example, I am writing this in South Bend, Sunday the 21st June, the first day of summer in the US.
There are two ways to know where I am and which way I am going. Look to the left and down a bit, there is a small map, it tells you my current general location. Whenever I get internet access I update this, it takes 30 seconds and is as actual as it can be. If I do not do a blog update, I will always update this map anyway.
The second way and most accurate is to look to the right, there is a link called
Here I Am
SPOT tracks of Where I Am
Click on that link, it will open a new page in your web browser, if I am actually physically riding at the moment, it will be updated every 30 minutes or so, the higher the number flag is the latest position locator. I always turn this off about 5 minutes from where I intend staying, but I am in that general area.
I hope the confusion does not stop the offers of meeting fellow riders from coming in, but now I may get the messages before I actually blow through town. After Rapid City, I will be slowing down a lot more, so I will have more chances anyway.
Well, I slept in and felt pretty crappy when I woke up, I have no idea why! All the rest of the riders had left on rides, so I still did not know where the Spine guy stays, so I ended up just booking the next 3 nights where I was, although I had to change rooms to upstairs.
Having done that I went back to bed till early arvo, crook as a dog was I. Then it rained, quite a big thunderstorm and the rain seemed to come from every direction except straight down.
I lazed around, caught up on a post before heading over late afternoon for the Friday gathering. The riders had taken up nearly a whole block of rooms at the hotel and bikes were everywhere.
There was the sign up table to get your name badge and also to buy raffle tickets etc, and another to sort out dirt rides.
The dinner was a great event, with at a guess 140 people or thereabouts.
This is the event organiser, The Blade, he did a very good job of setting everything up and getting sponsors to attend and/or donate gear for the door prizes and raffles. Let’s hear it for Carter 🙂 That was a popular shout, I am sure he was getting used to the applause he received! Also behind him is Mountain Air, he was the event spruiker and did a great job, even though the PA system was shagged and he ended up not using it.
Everyone who had paid for dinner was entered into the door prize draw of which there were heaps of things to choose from. I was lucky enough to be called out and chose a oil filler plug with hex key, as I had nearly everything else 🙂 Of course I modelled off the Vstrom-Oz tee shirt 🙂
I was also asked to say a little something, which was basically I am enjoying riding the country etc. One other thing I had with me was called the Stromtrooper forum Cache. This is a little box with some stuff in it, the whole idea was to carry it somewhere and meet up with another rider who would accept it and take it somewhere else and pass it on. It is supposed to be a way of meeting people, but I had carried it from LA to Key West, up to Canada and finally to here. I was happy to hand it off to Wee4Mee who is from Canada, so it is now going north.
After dinner, it was adjourn to the bar again, I was nearly feeling better by now, but not 100%. Great people though and a good time was had until closing.
Of course a small group of us went back to Cheers for the show 🙂
The only downer was the fights, two in two nights and the chap in black on the left was the copper on duty, he let these chaps fight it out in the bar, back home they would have been thrown outside to have the fight, then come back in maybe for a beer afterwards, when they had made friends.
But, it was a fun and interesting night, even though another late one. Tom and myself seemed to have been on the same wavelength and decided to do a ride tomorrow up towards Sturgis way, he also was not keen on a whole bunch of riders in front and behind.
Day – 0 miles and 0 km
Trip – 21,490 miles and 34,585 km
Cheers
TravellingStrom
TravellingStrom 