Crazy Days

Where do I begin? In my last blog entry I alluded to the huge scope of entertaining things one can witness here. But then I was a rookie. Wizened by several days of the Sturgis experience, I can now report with greater accuracy. The whole town is like a three; make that three dozen ring circus.

We are camped at the Buffalo Chip, which is the largest and maybe the bawdiest of the local venues. Last night, popular country and western entertainer, Toby Keith, put on a great show to a mostly standing room crowd of I guess ten to twenty thousand.

Whenever a break in the entertainment allows, the management will insert a different act to amuse us. For instance, there are ramps set up in the main show area and they have guys on motocross bikes charge the ramp at high speed. The ramp then lifts said riders to fantastic heights.

While airborne, they, not content with the enormous shot of adrenalin you get from launching yourself 60 feet in the air, further amuse themselves by temporarily leaving the motorcycle, tethered only by fingernails and will to the handlebars while they twist, curl, wave, and flap in the wind. Time must be dilated for them, sort of like house fly time. I probably look like I’m in slow motion to a fly as I make my feeble attempt to swat them away. I think it must be like that for these riders. They do impossible tricks, up to and beyond the apex of the jump when gravity overcomes the upward inertia imparted by the ramp and they begin their fall at 33 feet per second, squared. Unconcerned, they are posing for the cameras, bike laid sideways, feet over their heads, I’ll bet they are even making funny faces or wiggling their ears. About 2/3rds through the arc, they begin to prepare for landing, seats in an upright position, tray tables stored, etc. They wrench the laid over bike to the vertical and a split second before contacting the landing ramp, resume their normal riding position, butt on the seat and feet on the pegs. The machine lands, torturing the forks and shocks, but allowing the resilient young riders circle and do it again. Only then do the spectators resume breathing.

Like Mardi Gras, there is a time honored tradition in Sturgis of flashing your boobs for the enjoyment of all. They flash as they ride, they flash as they dance at the concerts, they flash for beads, they flash for any reason. It is as it should be says I. Can't show the flashing... there are kids in the room. Trust me, they flash. ;-) It's fun.

There are beautiful girls everywhere. they sell beer, advertise products, enhance the scenery. Today, three Easy Rider Magazine Models spotted me; "Isn't that Harry Hanbury the famous blogger?," they shouted as they wrestled me to face the camera. I complied with their desires allowing them their trophy photo. I'm a soft touch in these matters. Explaining that I'm a happily married man, I politely refused their phone numbers, letting them down as easily as I could and moved on. I'm sure they will get over it soon.

Roll up your pants, it's too late to save your shoes.

Not having visited any emergency rooms for what seemed like days, I decided to drop in at the local Veterans Hospital to assure I can continue the blog by keeping death in check. I got light headed while searching for breakfast and knowing I sometimes throw strings of ventricular tachycardia, VT for short, I sought the services of the nearest electrocardiogram machine. Wired up, I produced a somewhat scary paper chart of heart arrhythmias and was diagnosed to be dehydrated and low on potassium. Admonished to drink lots of water and with a tuned up medicine regimen, I was released to search out more blogworthy stories. The pursuit continues.

You might think that dehydration is impossible in a town where beer dominates the grocery isles. I was so amazed by the sheer volume I took this picture of Theresa standing next to the beer mountain at the local food store. By my calculation, beer is about 95% water. The nurse at the VA Hospital however, assured me that this is not a good cure for dehydration. Soda pop, my other weakness, is likewise off the list as the beneficial water therein is corrupted by high fructose corn syrup and caffeine, which are friends of the reaper and also not good for your teeth. Killjoy.

Discharged, and feeling rejuvenated by a potassium pill and a gallon of H2O, we rode to the Elsworth Air Force Base Air and Space Museum.

Want to see the grim reaper's neatest tool to date? The MK-82 megaton class bomb was surprisingly tiny for a device that can level a city, but you know what they say, "Big things come in small packages". True dat! I was surprised, looking at the diagram of the bomb's innards that most of the container is filled with parachutes, and non-bangy things designed to help it land on target. Believe me, with one of these things you only need to get close. They also had interesting displays of aircraft like the fast B1-b bomber that buzzed Main Street in downtown Sturgis today, and examples of missiles, and other scary things that allow us to sleep peacefully at night. I hope we never have to use this stuff but I know that if we don't have it, someone out there will take advantage and cause us to have a bad day. Nuts to them I say... I like our bombs.

This puts me in a patriotic mood, thinking about how our soldiers keep the bogey man away. To give proper respect to our veterans, the Buffalo Chip has erected a thousand flags to honor and remember the our fallen comrades. It is an impressive sight.

Tonight we were rained out. Cheech and Chong are entertaining an empty wet field of grass, as far as I know because most of us are huddled in tents, RVs, or the laundry room where a blogger can find an A/C outlet to provide somnolence for his readers. Tomorrow, the mega band Arrowsmith will play at the field. I'm betting on 20,000 dancing, flashing, fans. I hope it doesn't rain.