Saturday, Aug 9th, we drove into Rapid City to explore the town. We did the downtown walking tour of the Presidents. Bronze statues of our nations Presidents line the street corners of downtown Rapid City. Each depicts a president in different poses, emphasizing some unique aspect of their personality. Bob’s favorite was President Reagan wearing a cowboy hat. The Presidents are life-size, the book is full of fun facts mixed with traditional history.
Did you know? President Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) was called “Old Kinderhook” from which we get our saying, “OK”, because he was perceived as usually being correct. It was a history lesson for us and a very interesting way to view the Presidents. Barack Obama will be on display when he has completed his term of office. Rapid City is the only location in the world where all US Presidents can be seen in life-sized bronze statues.
We left Rapid City and drove 30 miles north east to the City of Sturgis, founded in 1876. It was named for the Mayor Samuel D Sturgis, a commander at nearby Forte Meade Cavalry Post. In 1938, JC “Pappy” Hoel hosted a dirt track race with nine riders that set a course in Sturgis history. Today, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally has evolved into South Dakota’s largest tourism event and the world’s largest motorcycle rally. We happened to arrive there the week of the Rally, and the thundering sounds of motorcycles was prevalent everywhere. For fifty weeks out of the year Sturgis is a quiet town of about 6,500. And this week riders from around the world converge on Sturgis and thousands of vendors who set up shop just for the Rally. This year was the 74th Annual Rally and the crowds were lower than expected because next year, the 75th over a million people are expected to converge on Sturgis and we will not be here then.
We had a great time walking around the town amongst all the motorcycles and crazy outfits that all the riders wear. Main Street was closed off to just motorcycles, and most were parked down the middle of the street with vendors on both sides of the road selling mostly Rally T-shirts, so we had to buy a couple to wear. There were definitely some beautiful motorcycles to see and take photos of, Bob’s favorite were the Indian models, however, the majority were Harley Davidson cycles both old and new. It was quite a sight from the lookout platform looking down on the street filled with hundreds of motorcycles.