yep, we're home

We got home last Monday, August 10th. We've been rather busy; we've been unloading and unpacking and organizing our home; I had weekend guests; Greg's been working hard on the landscaping; we're getting ready for more guests for this upcoming weekend.

I thought I'd do a recap of the week in Sturgis. We didn't have internet access so I couldn't make my usual updates. Because this post covers a lot of territory (haha), it's a bit longer than usual!

Some of the scenery in the Sturgis area includes:

Crazy Horse Monument

antelope (?)

Custer State Park (Needles Highway)

and the Piggytail sections of the road

Mount Rushmore

the Badlands

Sturgis bike week scenery includes:

streets full of bikes,

a bike "show"

girlie action


At the campground, we enjoyed a "pitchfork fondue." Yep, these are steaks, on a pitchfork, that are lowered into boiling vats of oil. The buns are also thrown into the oil vats for heating, making them taste more like donuts. NUM

And more concerts at the campground, including Aerosmith - this is probably one of the last pictures of Steven Tyler before he fell off the stage.

And this is the lead singer of Buckcherry, one of my current faves. He was just getting over bronchitis, so he couldn't do a full concert either. {sigh}

One of the fun things about concerts at the Buffalo Chip campground - folks (if they want) bring their bikes right up to the amphitheater and use them for seating. Well, and they rev their engines to show approval or disapproval. What a roar!

Now the unexpected... there was a bit of a hail storm in the area. We were on the bike, and came upon the "remains" of the storm on our way back to the campground. Some of the hail chunks were easily as big as a racquetball, and I KNOW there were more that were bigger! So as we were driving back to the camp, all I could think was "please, not the campground."

{sigh} At least the hail was smaller, but still definitely golf ball size. Our rig was damaged, both awnings destroyed, our roof broken, roof vents and skylight broken, windshield cracked, etc., but it was mostly dry inside and Greg did wonders with a tablecloth, tents, gorilla tape and rope to keep the rain out during the rest of our stay.

But a lot of other vehicles were WAY worse off than ours, as this pic shows. And many/most tents had holes and belongings were soaked. A lot of people left that day, which was a day or two earlier than they had planned, and many left their belongings as non-salvageable. wow.