Mark and Patty RV Adventures: Sturgis South Dakota

July 21 - 23, 2017:

Our Sturgis stop is just to see what all of the fuss is about with the bike rallies here. We just planned for a couple of days here to check it out.

We left the Badlands and traveled the 180 miles up to Sturgis through Rapid City SD. As soon as we got close to Rapid City it looked like fog had come in. How can that be?! The temperature is 95 and the humidity is around 20 so why fog?

Picture of the smoke covering Sturgis hillside sign as we went by it on the highway

We listened on the radio to the weather and all they would say is that it was clear and hot. When we got to the Days End Campground in Sturgis we asked about the “fog” and they said it was smoke from wild fires burning in Montana. We got that confirmed later on TV. That is a lot of smoke. We saw the smoke for over 100 miles!

Our site in Sturgis at the Days End.

Our first night there we went out to eat at one of the rally hot spots to see what was happening. Well, in a word, nothing was happening. This was a Friday about 12 days before the rally start so everywhere you looked were people setting up stuff for it. By looking at all of the vendor spaces around the town this really must be something to see! I would say that only about 10% of the vendors were set up at this time.

Me in front of our dinner place in Sturgis

Our only whole day, Saturday the 22nd, in Sturgis, we walked into town and had lunch and walked the downtown strip. This area is only open to bikes during the rally but now it is a two way street. During the rally bikes are allowed to park 2 deep in the center of the road. This area is ground zero for the rally.