Sturgis! (2016)

The main street in Sturgis.

OK, so this is way behind the times…another year of Sturgis has come and gone before I have even gotten around to writing this entry! So slack of me.

So, last year, in July and August of 2016, Nicole and I took our kids to the USA for a few weeks.  The primary purpose of our visit, was to spend some time with a few churches over there, to learn from them and to hopefully help them too.  Part of that, is always some good connecting time with the leaders of those churches…and my time in Denver, Colorado coincided with a motorcycle rally in Sturgis.  So when two of my buddies in Denver said they were going and I was invited…who was I to argue?

So we arrived in Denver and spent a weekend with Redemption City Church there while we adjusted to time and temperature changes, and then that week, Tyrone, TKay and myself headed off on Harleys towards a small town in the Black Hills of South Dakota called Sturgis.  Now Sturgis is a small town of around 7,000 people…all except for the week of this particular motorcycle rally, when half a million or so motorcyclists essentially move in and take over.  The ride there involved heading North from Denver up through Wyoming and across to South Dakota, a distance of around 620 kilometres.

We hit this ride in one day (with a nice, early start) so we could get to our accommodation in Rapid City and settle there, rather than spreading the travel out over two days…the ride there was mainly straight and highways, whereas the riding once we were there, was through the glorious winding roads of the Black Hills…worth getting there sooner!

We headed into Sturgis itself a few times, but we were always out of there before dark when a whole different culture sets in.  During the day, it is the most awesome motorcycle supermarket I have ever seen!  Any part or accessory you can think of, are all available right there.  And if buying a new part (say an exhaust system) meant having an old one there too…they would just send that home for you so you could have the new parts fitted there and enjoy them immediately.

The rides, the atmosphere, the availability of parts and accessories only dreamt about over here in Australia…was all amazing.  It was such a good time, with some great mates.  And the time with them, was the absolute highlight for me (I hope time with me was also OK for them!).

We had a couple of nights there and then headed back to Denver where I spent time with Redemption City Church before we went to Nanaimo, Canada to be with Mike and Deb Graves and Oceanside Church.  I lost all my Scoop Deluxe beard products and combs to some thieving, hipster airport staff member at the Vancouver Airport, but that’s another story!  After that, we headed to LA to be with Jody and Vanessa Romero and Restoration LA, an awesome church in East LA.

It was a valuable trip and time, with some great friends…and Sturgis was a definite, personal highlight…I hope to go again one day.

Seeing Mount Rushmore in person was completely awesome.