Day 8, 05Aug2025 - Leaving Sturgis, visiting relatives and moving east.

Tuesday morning was a bit lazy/hazy, we were up by 06:00 despite getting in close to midnight,. We did not want it to end, it is kind of one of those times when you know if you turn in, the party is over. 

We had a great time in Sturgis, the riding is second to none and the weather was nearly perfect. We logged just short of 500 miles in our three days of riding.  We are glad we made the last minute decision to come to the 85th rally. 

At Sturgis, there is such a fun vibe during rally week. Everyone we met was just happy to be in Sturgis and many, many, take great pride in their yearly pilgrimage to Sturgis. 

John Keaty's vest

This is the back of John's vest, the badges on the left indicate the rally's in which he arrived (from Texas) on his bike, those on the right indicate attendance.  He ran out of room and had to put the 2025 on the very top.  Pretty impressive.

If I had a vest...it would have only 3 badges, 2014, 2015 and 2025.

We were all loaded, tanks dumped and ready to pull out about 09:00. We planned to visit June's sister in law and her husband near Rapid City on the way out;  it was a bit of a diversion, but we had not seen them in 10 years. 

Steve, June and Helen

We had a nice visit with Helen and Steve, it was good to find them in good health and enjoying life.

Steve has a wood craft business, Bent Pine Woodcraft LLC, and makes all kinds of interesting, beautiful art that is functional.

Bent Pine Woodcraft LLC

He gave us this as a gift, I will leave it up to the reader to figure out its function, it took me a minute. June guessed a muddler...she was wrong..

If you want to check out his work and products, here is a link to his FB page. 

Bent Pine Woodcraft, LLC

We departed Steve and Helen's a little before 11:00 and headed towards Minnesota.  We debated our route but ultimately jumped on I90 East, it was probably a poor choice, the wind was out of the South East at 20mph or more. The Mercedes Adaptive Electronic Stability Program (ESP®), a safety feature designed to help drivers maintain control of the vehicle, bailed out on me twice due to the overly challenging conditions, brilliant!  This means you lose Cruise until you pull over turn off the vehicle and restart.....then you just hope it will not happen again.  

View of the Missouri River

We stopped at the Lewis and Clark Missouri River visitor center to allow the MB to reset ESP. 

DIGNITY of Earth and Sky

We did find a statue that was not here when we were here in 2015. 

Other than the wind, it was an uneventful drive of about 500 miles. 

We booked a site at Camden State Park in Lynd, MN. We arrived about 20:30, the site cheap enough $25 and the campground pretty much empty.  

June made a nice dinner of Chicken burgers, veggies and Suddenly Salad! It was yummy. 

Wednesday we plan to make our way to visit our relatives in Minnesota, north of the twin cites.