Sturgis Bike Week 2011

Last week I flew to Denver and met up w/ my sister Janet and her friend from work Judy. We packed Janet's little red Chevy HHR (like a PT Cruiser) and set off for Sturgis South Dakota to meet my other 4 sisters for a sisters week. We had to make difficult choices..beer cooler or lawn chairs? Beer cooler or lawn chairs...BEER COOLER! We met up with the other 4 sisters at our campground for the week Hog Heaven. I must totally recommend this place. It was grassy and shaded by trees and had many nooks and crannies to pitch your tents. There were good bath/shower houses, they cleaned the porta potties daily (yay!) and the food was good and HUGE. I got nachos supreme one day and 3 of us couldn't finish it and I was starving! They came in an 8x10 pan! Also good coffees every morning and the other campers were the quiet, non scary sort. We spent the week laughing our heads off, shopping, and hit the bars every night. This is little old me who never goes out anymore so I was a bit tired when the week was done and my feet were killing me! I know we walked 5+ miles every day. I wore my shoes out and had to buy a new pair!
This lovely little joint was the Dungeon bar. The walls are covered with graffiti and the ceilings are covered with bras and underpants of former customers..thank goodness they did not serve food!
The graffiti was amazing to me..it covered every square inch of the place.
Here I am looking rather hammered, but it is really just that I am not very photogenic and when I smile, my eyes turn into catty little slits. Now this is NOT my regular outfit for the grocery store or the post office, but when in Rome..yada, yada, yada..I am the oldest sister and at almost 49, I had the joy of trying to keep up with all my younger, thinner, firmer sisters! "Hoist yer main sails Ladies!" LOL
This was the Loud American bar. The bars were packed every night and they all had bands..it was great.
Post bar food....It smelled great but by this point I had the hiccups and passed on the food!(Then I ate off my sister's plates and the hiccups went away!)
This is Deadwood. I really loved the old architecture there.
Random people on the street..
This is inside the bar where Wild Bill Hickock was shot..fab back bar and tin ceilings!
More Deadwood..
Parked bikes..there were thousands of bikes parked and driving by.
Ok..I have a thing for old buildings!
This is John, a guy from England we met. He was camping at the Buffalo Chip next to one of my brothers-in-law and he adopted him. He was quiet and sweet and danced like one of the kids from Charlie Brown..his feet never moved and he bopped his upper body about and just never quit smiling! He flew to Denver and rented a Harley and drove to Sturgis all alone. We were impressed by his spirit. I asked him about it and he said his friends weren't into bikes as much as he was and he had recently gotten divorced after 15 years and was now doing whatever he wanted to! LOL
The Oasis..we were in here a couple times. One afternoon a couple of the sisters entertained us with their Karaoke singing!
The Buffalo CHIIIIIIIPPPP! That is how the dude that runs it would say it when he was onstage at the concert. We stayed one night here and went to Buck Cherry and Def Leppard. The Chip is a huuuge campground..no shade..questionable portapotties and crazy people. They partied, screamed and reved their bikes nonstop all night long. Fun but not restful!
My sis Laura, Judy , me in red, my BIL's friend Dave and my sis Janet at Def Leppard. She is a huge fan and had a VIP pass to get right up front. She sees them as many times as she can. I like Def Leppard..a blast from my illspent youth, but they were a bit rough vocally on some of the songs. Buck Cherry I had seen before and they were as good as ever..I think Josh has some new tatts since the last time I saw their show!
The bikes were parked right in the crowd and there were thousands of them there. If they liked a song or wanted an encore, they just started rev-ving them up..it was insanely loud and totally cool! Judy got to sit on the biker next to us's handlebars..she had fun!
My 2 youngest sisters Jess and Aron
Here we are at the Full Throttle at Ted Nugent. To say Ted is right wing is like saying the sun is hot, but DAMN can he and his band still rock it! They sounded fabulous. This is me & my sisters Andrea and Janet
The Full Throttle was huge and packed..there were thousands of people..and 30 portapotties..baddddddddd. The line was 3 blocks long, it was ridiculous. People stopped buying beer because they didn't want to have to get back in that line! Bad business practice..they needed twice as many at least. I also had the joy of not quite getting my door latch slid to occupied and had the door ripped open by a burly biker. I may have shreiked a bit..or a lot..
Uncle Ted..the man is crazy.
This was a tiny portion of the bar..packed.
A couple bartenders.
Main Street Sturgis..bikes for blocks and blocks.
Judy found a man! She was the only single lady and anytime we were hit on we would tell her to "take one for the team"..she wasn't very cooperative! We did have a semi stalker in the form of a 65 yr old dude named Fitzie who owns 3 liquor stores and 3 convenience stores in Atlanta. He was funny and naughty and just kept popping up where ever we went. We decided he must have put a tracking device on one of us!
Not sure that I will have a return trip as I am not much of a camper..ok..this was my first time in a tent..and by the number of times I mentioned the word "porta potty" you may have come to the rightful conclusion that they are NOT my fav (or even close). It was great fun though with my sisters..soooo much laughing. I shared a tent w/ my sis Janet and her air mattress had a slow leak so every night she aired it up and every morning we were bottomed out in the middle like a double hot dog! It was damp and cold at night..I usually wore my clothes to bed and one night, my coat. I did survive though and made it back home in one piece, back to no sisters close except on facebook and my loving family who missed me as much as I did them. I told my husband he is officially the best brother in law of the lot. My 8 yr old Jack said he was" broken hearted and was missing a piece of his soul" while I was gone..such drama! LOL Now back to my officially boring mom life..and I love it! Til next time! Julia

Out Behind the Barn

Hi guys! I have been soooo bad lately about posting! I have been busy working on some pieces to submit to one of my fav magazines, Somerset Life. If you haven't seen any of Stampington Company's gorgeous magazines, hie yourself to the book store ( or internet www.stampington.com)! More on that later. This odd looking pic above is one I took on "vacation" at my folks this summer. When I was little, the grain elevator in town was the tallest thing for miles around..still is! You can see it from my dad's farm and I was always comforted to know my grampa and gramma's house was just a few blocks to the south of it. When you say "elevator" in South Dakota, this is what you are talking about. The only people elevator was (is) in the court house that is all of 4 stories counting the basement. It was a big deal as a little kid to ride that elevator whenever we happened to be in the building. I seem to recall a crabby little old lady who worked there giving us the stink eye. Anyhoo..I still have a soft spot for the GRAIN elevator and took a few pics.
The cement part was the original part but they have added some huge metal bins in the last 10 years or so.
They are just so big and silver and purdy! LOL This below is the back of my dad's barn. It used to hold lots of sheep and the occasional cow and calf but now that they are retired it holds barn cats. They tinned this back side quite awhile back..it takes quite a beating from the north winter winds. There is a big door under that tin at the top. We spent many hours in the hayloft building forts out of the bales and swinging on the rope swing. It has a ladder mounted on the wall in one of the bunks and you have to climb up, open the trap door and make a leap of faith as you transfer your grip from the ladder to a crack in the loft floor and hoist yourself up.
Not for the faint of heart or the "little kids". If you were too chicken to do it, you didn't get to come up. The climb down was even a bit more nerve wracking as you had to drop yourself back down the trapdoor and back onto the ladder. I had one sister who would get up there and then always wanted us to "go get daddy" to "save" her. We spent hours playing in this barnyard and the pasture out behind it playing "Laura Ingalls" and Little House on the Prairie. I always got stuck being Mary who was either bossy and Miss Perfect or blind depending on the story of the day. We always had 2 Laura's if my cousin Becca was over ..neither she or my sister Janet would give in and NOT be Laura.
My mom and dad have resided most of this barn themselves just lately and it makes me nervous as hell to hear my mom talk about it..they are 74 and 70!
Some of the new siding..
The front. I love this one and the next one..I need to get them enlarged and framed.
So many memories! My dad's shop is the sliding door to the left. I always have to go in there and poke around when I am back and just SMELL things..that unique scent of barn, wood and grease.
This used to be the chicken coop back when we had chickens and there is also a grainary section. It has sort of been let go and dad was making noises about knocking it down but I told him noooo! We used to go up in the grain bins on hot days and play in the wheat. It was always cooler and we buried each other in it like we were at the beach. You didn't play in the oats bin..way too itchy!
I was messing around with weird angles.
My mom used to feed the barn cats in here and one of my nephews when he was about 3 came into the kitchen and loudly announced with his 3 yr old speech impediment that gramma "Had titties in the titty barn!" My brother's in law all laughed and asked here what kind of place she was running!
This one is a fave too. Tomarrow I leave for the Sturgis Bike Rally. All 5 of my younger sisters are going also and we are going to camp and go to concerts and laugh and drink and tell and re-tell stories . Girls trip only! I will be away from home for 10 days and am both excited and dismayed to be leaving my husband and kids at home. I have never been away from my grandson who just turned 3 for more than a day! It will be a rude awaking for the rest of my crew I believe. I think they think I sit about eating bon bons all day. I will take pics and I shall return with stories to share! Hope you have a great week! Til next time. Julia

Saturday night at the Drive-In Theatre

Last Saturday night the kids and I made a trip to our local drive-in theater ...or "theatre" if you are schmantzy. I am spoiled. I grew up with a drive-in, in my Midwest hometown and it is still there and still open. Here in TN we have one right down the road in Athens. I have so many memories of the drive in... playing on the playground in my jammies and Pink Panther cartoons. Umm.. I can't go into detail about my highschool year's "all night shows" except saying my mother was right..nothing good was going on there! I am glad to be able to share the drive-in movie experience with my kids and they have been to both drive ins!
Notice it is still very light..we went early to make sure we got a good spot and to give the kids time to play on the playground before the movies started. $6 for adults!
The ever present playground sign..of course for good reason..this is an "old school" playground and the rides are pretty much a trip to the ER waiting to happen. How did we ever survive these death traps! LOL
It was pretty steamy at the start but balmy and gorgeous after the sun went down. The mosquitoes weren't even bad. There were flickering fire flies and insanely loud cicadas or 17 year locusts which I pictured at the bottom of this post. If you have never heard them , they sound like a cross between a cricket, shrieking bird and a bullfrog. I don't know how you manage to tune them out.. I guess it is sort of like looking through a screen door..you don't see the screen unless you look and you don't hear them unless you listen! Every once and a while during the movie you would realize they were croaking/chirping/screaming and then you would cuss yourself and focus on the movie until you didn't notice them again!
Wheel of death..or how children learn about centrifical force. They quickly picked up the 2 styles of pushing..someone running on the outside and the more dangerous (not for the slow of foot) inner circle pushing! They went slow when there was a little kid on and swiftly started sending them to the other, slower "little kid" merry go round. There were a few spills and flings and pusher wipe outs but no broken bones.
More physics lessons..a lever, a fulcrum and a load. Ahh.. the teeter totters or see saws.. or as I call them..the catapult! I still recall both being launched from one of these and being at the top when the kid on the bottom bails off leaving you to crush your feet underneath it or jam your spine out the top of your head! The ones in the park at my hometown not only see-sawed, but spun around as an extra way to injure yourself!
My grandparents actually had one of these in their yard but it also had a fireman's pole on the side. We waxed it with waxed paper or dusted it with dirt for extra speed!
Surround sound..apparently smoking is still ok at the drive in!
Ahh..the concession stand.. The one in my hometown had the little kids fenced playground behind it complete with bumpy elephant slide. The playground in front of the screen was for the "big" kids.
This place has not been updated since the 60's and I LOVE it! I almost got misty in line!
The hot sandwich box...
Popcorn...
*Insert Homer Simpson style drool here* I actually settled for nachos..and popcorn..and ice cream..
My grandson laying in the back of the minivan's hatch watching the movie. We had a front row spot and contrary to the sparse earlier photos, the drive in was pretty full by showtime! The rest of us had lawn chairs and my 8 yr old pretty much stayed on the playground most of the night. I tried to get him to sit with us and watch the movie but there were tears because his new friends were still on the playground so I caved in and let him run and create his own memories! If you have a drive-in close by make sure you get your kids or grandkids there to make some memories of THEIR own!
This nasty looking bug is one of the aforementioned locusts. These bad boys are about 2 inches long!
These are their husks or exoskeletons that they shed going from big bug to big winged bug. The husks stay attached to the tree until a good breeze or rain knocks them off. And on THAT cheery note..hoping you all are enjoying your summer as much as I am (or more) Until next time! Julia

Back to the Farm

Most 4th of July's my family and I take our annual 18-20 hour drive back to my parent's farm in South Dakota. We have missed some years and there was much complaining with the kids because apparently, 4th of July is not the same unless spent with Grampa and Gramma and all the cousins. We pack our van with suitcases, road food (pure junk), coolers of drinks and lately, laptops, Ipods, DVD players and the like and take turns driving all night singing along to the radio and passing familiar landmarks... Titan's Stadium, The St. Louis Arch, that one gas station in St. Joseph that we always somehow end up at. This year we had to detour through Des Moines due to the flooding. We roll into the farm very frazzled and road weary and just so glad to both be there and out of the van!
This year we were greeted with a "snowstorm" of cottonwood fuzzies floating down from the big old cottonwoods that line my parents driveway. SD is always at least breezy and I always forget the noise that the cottonwoods make with their waxy, heart shaped leaves rustling in the wind. I always have to crush and sniff a leaf or 2 to bring back the smells of my childhood.
It was hugs all around to my parents and the sisters, BIL's and nieces and nephews that were already there and then we were straight into the shower and the girls were then out the door to my sister's house. She was having a party for us "girls" and we were to all wear hats and be prepared to sing karaoke..or else! I caterwauled a rousing rendition of B. Spears "Hit me Baby One More Time" thankyouverymuch.This is my mom in the middle (she is 70!) and all of us sisters. I am the 3rd from the left..I somehow always manage to pick the most unappealing pose possible for the camera..let's see...how can I appear at my widest?! LOL Anyways..here are the "old girls"..
and these are the "young girls". The ones on the left and middle are my daughters Hope and Alexa and the other 3 are my nieces, Cory, Nicki, and Ali
PARADE DAY!! My hometown usually has a great parade. We watch on Main Street in front omy my brother and SIL's coffeeshop. These are former candy snatchers..now too old they are happy to watch the little cousins snatch up parade candy and maybe sneak a piece or 2. This is 2 of my nephews Damian and Bryce and my girl Hope. That is my dad holding up the wall of the coffeeshop. He is 74 and looking good! My brother David and SIL Carol make the BEST frozen coffees I have ever had... they beat Starbucks all to heck! ( Simply Charming in Redfield South Dakota)

A couple of the "little kids" in their 4th of July attire.. My grandson Hunter and grand niece Avery watching the parade. I realized I never took one pic of the parade..just all my family!
My niece Annika inspecting her candy. Her mom my sis Aron made all the little girls matching skirts!
Later in the day, cooling off at Gramma's pool..lol..it looks a bit pitiful but they did have fun. The boys were running amok with the hose and squirtguns. It was HOT..the haze on this pic is where my lens fogged over when I stepped outside!
Later in the week..Hunter making cookies with his great gramma.
There is always the family fishing morning if weather permits. We fish for bullheads by my husband's Grandpa and Gramma's old farmplace. His cousin lives there now. We are strictly catch and release. I usually take pics, eat sunflower seeds and check the gravel road for heart shaped rocks. The kids get the poles and my husband is the hook baiter and fish remover.
Alexa caught the biggest fish..and also the littlest one! Hope deemed herself mosquito bait (she is..they love her) and chose to stay at the farm. Actually it was cool and breezy and I guess the mosquitos were still sleeping!
Our 8 yr old Jack was very excited. He thought every nibble was "the big one"!Final pic, the boys in front of a flag that is painted on the side of one of the businesses in town..Jack with an impromptu but fitting salute and Hunter always the copycat. Hope you had a great Independence day! More pics of the farm and whatnot will be coming later! Til next time! Julia