Day 27

We packed up, broke camp and were on the road by 8 a.m. It was a beautiful ride through the Bighorns over Powder River Pass (9,666 ft.) and into Buffalo, WY. Initially, I thought about giving Joe Tiller, retired Purdue Football Head Coach, a call and drop in and visit since he lives in near Buffalo. Not that I know Coach Tiller well – just that when he retired he gave an open invitation to Boiler fans to stop and visit. Since it was early on a Sunday morning, I used my better judgment and decided to keep on riding. We stopped in Gillette, WY for groceries and supplies and arrived in Sturgis around 1:30 p.m. I had selected a campground called Shady Valley, about 8 miles northeast of Sturgis. We checked in and found a nice campsite, set up camp and headed into town.

The actual start to the Sturgis Bike Week isn’t until tomorrow, but you can’t tell it by the number of bikes and people in town. It takes us almost ½ hour to drive through town. I think Graham used the term “overwhelming”.



We immediately found a Lucas Oil dealer that had set up shop and had our oil changed, then walked several blocks of the main drag to look at bikes, dealers wares, and shops of all kinds. In one pavilion they were going to judge the “World’s Best Bike”. There were some amazing bikes.







We returned to the camp for dinner – treating ourselves to T-bone steaks.



After cleaning up we headed back towards town to the famous Buffalo Chip. The Buffalo Chip is a huge campground/bar/entertainment center/concert venue/shopping complex just a couple of miles outside of Sturgis. Tonight the headliner for their concert was George Thoroughgood and the Destroyers. The opening act was Credence Clearwater Revisted. CCR had two original members of the four man Credence Clearwater Revival that was formed 41 years ago. They played all of their old favorites and Graham even recognized a lot of their songs. George Thoroughgood was good. I have seen many concerts in my younger days and I’m not sure that there is anybody that can rock like him from the start to the finish of a show. We went with Craig and Tonya Scott to Deer Creek 15+ year ago to see him in concert. You may recognize his songs, i.e. Bad to the Bone, One Bourbon – One Scotch – and One Beer, Get a Haircut and Get a Good Job. The concert area was like nothing I had ever seen. If you got there early enough, you could ride your bike right up to the front of the stage. There was a huge crowd. In between acts they had motocross stunt riders perform in an area in the middle of the main complex. It was hard to estimate, but there had to be 30,000 people there. Graham enjoyed the music but mentioned that it was worth it if only to see the place and the crowd. Here are some pictures from the Thoroughgood concert.







We crawled into our tent late to the rumbling of motorcycles entering the campground.