The Rally and Deadwood

Our trip is becoming a long one; enjoyable, but long nonetheless. I haven't done as many blog updates as I had hoped; we've been just too busy and having too much fun. I will try and do run down of the high and low lights of our trip so far.




We arrived in Deadwood Saturday during a constant drizzle all the way from Denver. The rain made the trip a bit treacherous on the back roads of Wyoming and South Dakota. The scenery popped with color; all the different shades of green were quite beautiful and new to the two of us desert dwellers. I never imagined how beautiful the mountains could be and how historical. Throughout the twisting turns of the mountain roads there were small cabins that were built long long ago. You could only imagine the rough and lonely lives those people lived back when they were inhabited.



Our hotel was the Hickok Hotel and Casino (casinos are huge in South Dakota- I did not know that). Located in the middle of Deadwood on the corners of Main and Deadwood to be exact, we had an unbelievable room with corner windows looking up and down Main Street. The room had a big comfy bed an electric fireplace, also a whirlpool tub (quite classy). The hotel even left us a chilled bottle of champagne; they knew it was our honeymoon.

Our first night, despite how tired we were, was spent bouncing along Main Street to all the bars and casino hotels lining the street. From one to the other I would guess there are about 20 different places to lose money or catch a buzz. We visited Kevin Costner's Hotel Casino (The Midnight Star). Inside here he has all the costumes he wore in each of his movies. We were seated in one the restaurants, above us was his outfit from The Postman, we promptly left (did not want to risk a meal as bad as the movie). We moved on found better restaurant, ate dinner, drank wine and hopped more bars. We probably should have gone to bed earlier (this was reoccurring problem), tomorrow we were to meet up with my Dad and his buddies for the start of the Cushman National Rally in Sturgis.



THE RALLY-

Let me first say this turned out to be more fun then as first thought. We were the youngsters and this was our group’s first rally, so we were confused with protocol. It turns out about 600+ people showed up for this event from all over. The organizers had different group activates planned for us during the week. Our first group activity was Sunday evening: Trip to MT Rushmore. This should be cool we thought, it was mainly because it was almost snowing. It rained the whole time we were there. The bus trip was long and crowded. When we arrived it was raining heavy, you could barely see the mountain through the clouds and mist. We arrived at about 7:00 and were told that were not to be back at our buses until 9:45! This was not anticipated; it may have been alright if the weather was not so bad. Our choices were to wait in the cafe (which was nice) or buy a poncho and suffer the cold. One cool thing about the National Parks we learned was that they encourage exchange students from all over the world to come and work at the park in some capacity for the summer. There were a lot of really nice kids from China, Russia, Columbia and I am sure other places working there. How cool is that for them? Back to Rushmore...I got us ponchos and we tried to go and get some pictures. We had both worn our “Father Figures” t-shirts that Mr. Reardon gave us to wear throughout our trip (they want photos from all around to show)...so, we thought how appropriate: our founding fathers and the Father Figures! We braved the elements and got some okay-ish pictures, the only thing was how the carved images looked. Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful and majestic and “proud to be an American” experience looking the man made marvel; however, when it rains like it was doing, the Presidents do not look their best. Washington looks as if he is crying, Jefferson looks as if he has a bad runny nose, and Roosevelt and Lincoln just look cold. We wish the weather was better.

I could go on for awhile about our adventures in Deadwood and Sturgis during this rally, but I will just touch on the finer points…

Tracey and I spent a lot of time driving back and forth from the Rally in Sturgis and our hotel in Deadwood. Our trips were required for many reasons…the big need was to get all the scooters checked in for the show. While unpacking from the trailer I managed to throw my back out in very extreme manner. I spent the next 3 days hobbling around like an old man, occasionally dealing with a spasm so severe it would freeze me in my tracks. Tracey did her best to aid me in my despair; I found that alcohol and Advil did the most good.



The Rally was a huge success! We (my Dad) entered 4 scooters in all and all 4 received an award. Two were acknowledged by the local chamber of commerce as a Top 20; this was out of 600 scooters. 3 of 4 received trophies from the Cushman club, 1st, 2nd and 3rd in their class. One (the 1957 Mailster) received honors NEVER accomplished by any other entry in 28yrs…Best in show-Peoples’ Choice, Best in Show-Judges choice…both of these by a first timer rally attendee. How proud we all were and relieved it was all over. My Dad deserved any all accolades; he puts so much of himself into his projects: CONGRATS DAD!



DEADWOOD FUN-

After a short day in Sturgis we went back to Deadwood around 3pm; we stopped in a favorite bar of ours: The Oyster Bay. I guess it too has a lot of history (let me just say…EVERY BAR AND HOTEL AND BUILDING has some sort of history in this town)…this bar specializes in oyster shooters, quite good, made with beer and different levels of hot sauce. There is one on the menu called “The Chernobyl” …this little baby is made with some type of million scoville hot sauce (a jalapeño has about 150 or 500 scoville rating) …well being the good husband I try to be, encouraged (dared) my wife to try one; she did. She immediately hiccupped and begged for crackers, she immediately regretted the challenge.

Later that day or maybe another day, we went to the Franklin hotel to have drinks on the Veranda. It has a beautiful deck looking over the Main Street; we wanted a good seat for the daily gunfight show below. We talked and drank, but mainly people watched. We spied an interesting couple ride up on motorcycle together, the husband (riding in front) had amp attached to the back of his jacket so his wife could navigate from behind (that’s what she said..:). They ended up on the veranda with us and I commented to them how cool their little map thing was. After introductions were learned they were German and were motorcycling around the Black Hills on their holiday. Klaus and Claudia were lots of fun. After cocktail the four of us decided to meet for dinner later. Our dinner was a blast! They were so much fun. The restaurant was amazing too, so good Tracey and I ate there again the next night. The Deadwood Social Club was its name and I highly recommend anything on the menu, especially the Buffalo tenderloins and the Roasted pheasant in Tuaca cream sauce..Mmmmmmm good.

After dinner with “zee germans” we all stumbled down to Saloon NO. 10. Fun times were had late into the evening, too late considering we had an 1880 train ride with the Rally folks at 8am. The train ride sucked! Not just because of our immense hangovers, but the long bus ride there and back had no AC and for once this week it was hot! The train ride was cute, quaint and any other minimal adjectives you could come up with. It was not even a steam train as I could swear it was advertised. We did see some deer (woo hoo!) and some really old mining cabins; beautiful country side continued as it had all week (and trip for that matter).

GAMBILING:

We did very little gambling. Slots only, and we did those very limited; we aren’t what you would call “gamblers”, we just ain’t built for it ($$$). Tracey did manage to win $50 on a single pull and I won $100 bucks after spending a twenty. Tracey bought herself a hoodie with her winnings; I bought a portion of dinner with mine.



Not much to tell about this portion of the trip that I haven’t touched on. Deadwood and Sturgis are great; I would give this portion of our trip 4 out of 5 stars. Our next leg will be Devil’s Tower and the mighty Yellowstone, and then it’s heading south towards home with a stop in Salt Lake to see the Mormon Temple (I promised my Mom we would see it).

I will post now so it doesn’t consume too much of your time to catch up…Bye for now, look for photo uploads on my Facebook page.