Day 11, Wednesday August 5th – Ham Sammich and Devil's Tower

Today we set out about 9AM for the Devil's Tower Loop.

This is a beautiful ride that heads northwest from Sturgis into Wyoming.

Along the way you pass several very remote saloons that pop up just for the Sturgis event. We passed them by, it was still morning and we are on two wheels....

Our first stop was Hulett, Wy where each year they cook up about 1000 pounds of pork and give out a free lunch to all the bikers who get there early enough, we arrived right on time at 11AM.

The line was about 20 mins long, but it was a good lunch with live music in Capt'n Ron's Rodeo Bar.

Hulett is a fun little town that gets just swamped with bikers on 'no panties Wednesday'. The no panties must have been from years past, now it is just a place everyone stops for a free sammich, listen to music and hang with the masses of bikers.

After seeing the sites in Hulett we moved onto Devil's tower, along with a few thousand of our biker friends.

The weather was perfect other than a bit warm and the tower is just amazing.

We were even able to pick out a few climbers on the tower...no thanks. They looked like small ants to the naked eye, it gives you some idea of scale, the tower really is huge.

As we exited the park we stopped at the 'Sacred Circle of Smoke Sculpture' and were amazed we were the only visitors. I think it is one of the very best places to view the Tower.

The three Amigos 

From Devil's Tower we rode toward Sundance, Wy, but as you leave you can see what one of the rangers referred to as the 'Spielberg Money Shot' from 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

Sundance is famous for the Sundance film festival and its association with Robert Redford.

We arrived just in time to grab some ice cream and watch the 'Burnout Contest'. For the price of a new tire contestants can ride their bike up onto a stand where the crowd can watch them burn the tire until it blows, with a loud bang. Winners are selected based upon crowd reaction.

The burnout is followed by a wet T-shirt contest, which the guys enjoyed, almost as much as the burn out contest. The girls not so much...

We left Sundance a bit after 5PM and headed back, John had to get his rental back to Rapid City by 7:30PM. The loop was about 170 miles.

 We came to Sturgis to be part of the 75^th annual rally, and it was great, but the real experience here is the riding. The roads are well maintained and to say the scenery is breath taking is not an over statement. The trip meter on the Harley says we have ridden 1075 miles since unloading in the Badlands and it was just awesome.

For our last evening we decided to meet John and Bill in Rapid City for a good dinner out. We ate at the Fire House Restaurant on Main Street. It is a cool place that was once an actual Firehouse. Good Food and good company.

Tomorrow we will pack up, say our goodbyes and head East, no set plan on where we might get to...we will see.