We re-entered the USA along Lake Superior and travelled through Minnesota. The sign boards changed from Moose to Deer warning signs.  We were not too far down the road and we saw some deer crossing the road way up ahead of us. The lakes and hills slowly faded away as we headed for Sturgis.  Huge maize and soya farm lands spread for miles and miles in all directions, with the odd little town every now and then.  Some of the towns were really odd, no bigger than a couple of buildings with a 4-way stop!  The roads were easy to follow as they either head North/South or East/West, so by looking at the sun you know which direction you are heading.  We kept heading west and travelled about 650km’s before we came to the town of Dawson.  It is a very pretty little town, with a wonderful new clean recreation area – lawns, trees, swimming pool, ablutions, about 3 base ball pitches, af-dakkies with bunkies and a small camping area on the one side. Many of the town folk were either playing ball with the kids or swimming.  The camping area had 5 huge camper vans/RV’s... and i mean huge, the size of a Golden Arrow bus! They have sections on the side that slide out which make the inside width bigger, it is amazing to see.  Most of the people at this particular camp site were retired; some had sold their house and most of their possessions, bought the RV and towed a vehicle for running around town.  They stayed in an area for 3 to 6 months at a time and would move to a warmer climate if the weather got too cold. Some had their pets with them, little or medium size dogs or kitties.  The one guy was a restaurant owner in the town and stayed there permanently, then there was 93 year old Paul who looked 75 and had been coming to the site for 9 years staying 6 months at a time. The fee (tent or RV) was US$15-00 per night or US$260-00 for the month – not too shabby considering it includes the use of their water and electricity.... The other wonderful thing about this camp site was the fact that there was no office to register or to pay the camping fee! It all worked on an honour system – there were envelopes in a little box on the wall next to the ablutions, wrote your details on the envelope and the number of days camping, put your money in the envelope and put it through the little post box!!  And that was it... well we set up camp and while i was making dinner, the restaurant guy came to ask about the GS and then on parting said that if the storm got too bad we could go into his camper as he never locks it!!! Storm... what storm? He pointed to the horizon and said that it would be in the area about midnight.... and if the siren went, then we were to head for the ablutions next to the swimming pool!!  Siren... what for?  Oh, to warn about a Tornado.....  At this point, i think our eyes were as wide as saucers, TORNADO’s ?  With that he headed back into town. To be honest I wasn’t sure if he was teasing us or not.  We finished dinner and Johan secured the tent – just in case............

During the night and in the early hours of the morning I could hear the thunder way off in a distance. At 6am we woke with a start as the thunder and lightning was right over head and it started to rain. We both turned over and cuddled back into our sleeping bags, as we realised that we would not be able to pack up in the pouring rain...  It was about 10 minutes later when the wind started, and it blew and it blew and it blew... it got so bad that I sat up and to hold the tent poles and it wasn’t long before I told Johan that it would be best that he got dressed.  He did this as quickly as possible and then took over the holding of the tent poles from me while I got dressed and packed our sleeping bags and stuff into the yellow dry bags. I helped Johan put his boots on, as his hands were busy holding the tent poles. Buy the time everything was packed, the front section of the tent had blown loose and was flapping violently. It was quite an unreal feeling, the noise of the wind and the thunder was unbelievable.  Thankfully we were still dry inside the tent but it was time to make a move before we has lift-off! The other big concern was the GS – was she still standing? The plan to get everything to a safe place went as follows: while Johan continued to hold onto the tent poles, I moved our stuff to a sheltered place behind the neighbours RV, then unhooked the tent poles on the downwind side so that they could straighten out and collapse the tent. I then held up the one end of the tent so that Johan could crawl out... once I was out of the tent the weather seemed to turn, thankyou  Jesus. While Johan was still in the tent I quickly took a video of the outside of the tent which showed his body outline as he was holding onto the tent on the inside. I thank the Lord that it was early morning and the sun was up, as it would have been a pretty scary thing to do in the dark.  While we were quickly rolling up the wet tent, we noticed all the neighbours coming out of the ablutions and going to their camper vans....the one neighbour came over to tell us that a friend had phoned him to say that there was a second storm on its way and he was totally amazed that we had stayed in the tent the whole time.  While we were moving all our stuff to the ablutions building we noticed all the destruction around us, trees snapped in two, trees blown over or ripped apart,
 branched and leaves and bits of stuff everywhere, the towns power was also knocked out.  In the ablutions I folded the wet tent neatly and repacked the yellow bags so that everything fitted properly.  Johan parked the GS as close to the building as possible and kept a steady eye on the wind direction which seemed to be gusting from all sides every now and then. The rain had started to fall again as the second storm moved in but thankfully it was not as violent as the first.  By 9am the weather had cleared and if it wasn’t for all the debris lying around you would never have thought there had been a storm.  We packed the GS and went back to the area where we had been camping and made a breakfast sandwich.  Rose and Jean came to chat with us and even brought the coffee.  What a blessing. One of the neighbours came to tell us that the council was using a snow plough to clear the streets and that the golf course got hit really bad... this really bothered some of the pensioners. They also told us that a tornado touched down about 20 miles (32 km’s) to the south east of us, phew! We drove up and down some of the streets on our way out of town and we were amazed to see so many of the beautiful big trees totally destroyed, but thankfully we did not see any major damage to any of the houses. 

The road west lead us through more farm lands, once again mostly miellies, soya and some wheat. As we headed west we zigzagged from the 212 down to 14 which would take us straight to Sturgis, some of the towns we went through were really small but all seem to have a Veterans Park.  After about 500km’s we got to the town of Hayes.  This little town had an airstrip, fuel station come convenience store, public park, fire department and about 3 houses.... that was it!  But what was so fascinating was that on a big field next to the airstrip was a huge gathering of cowboys, horses, vehicles, trailers and horse carts.  The lady at the store told us that it was a ‘trailer swop meeting’ that had been running for the week and as it was the last day of the event, the fire department was having a fund raising BBQ dinner.... and we were most welcome to join!  Johan was so excited to see real cowboys for the first time that we decided to camp the night in the public park but first headed over to the fire department to get some dinner. We saw real cowboys with cowboy hats, in denim shirts and jeans, boots with spurs and had live country music. After dinner we went to the public park which was across the road from the airstrip, unpacked the wet tent and laid it in the sun to dry. 
We were very blessed to pitch the tent on the edge of a little lake with ducks, terrapin and other water birds that we do not know the names of.The next morning we woke to a beautiful sunrise and headed off into ranch country.  Phew what a beautiful part of the country this was, the scenery change from flat farm lands to rolling hills with black cattle, huge tan colour cattle with white faces and horses. Slowly but surely we saw the Black Hills in the distance, it was breath taking, a heart stopping moment when once again we realised what an awesome God we serve. The closer we got to Sturgis the more motor cycles we saw.  From miles out of town we passed camp grounds with RV’s, tents and tent trailers.  It was 3 days before the official start of the rally and there were already thousands of bikers all over the show.  We headed through town to the BMW dealer as we needed to get a new front tyre.  Praise the Lord that they had the exact one that Johan needed for the GS.  Isn’t God good?  We strapped the tyre on the back and headed for the South Dakota Christian Motorcyclist Association State Rally in the Black Hills.
 
We spent the next 3 days with the most amazing group of CMA’ers building relationships and preparing our spirits for the volunteer work we were going to do during the week ahead at the Sturgis Rally.  We give all thanks and praise to the Lord for leading us to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and for the time we could spend with them.  It was just what we needed after spending so much time travelling alone, we felt at home with family.  On the Sunday everyone packed up and most of us moved to Mountain Shadow Camp Site in Piedmont, better known by the CMA’ers as ‘Kessler’s’.  Dan and Carol Kessler are CMA members who have opened there home and property as a campsite for the week of the Sturgis Rally.  They have little bungalows for hire, RV parking area, plenty of lawn for pitching tents, electrical points, fantastic ablutions and 24 hour free coffee, ice water, iced tea, American lemonade and snacks!  Oh and free wifi internet!  At Kessler’s we met more CMA’ers from all over the USA, Canada and Alaska.  Not everyone is able to stay the full week but all come to help do the Lords work and of course to enjoy the beautiful roads and scenery of the Black Hills. Some of our duties were ticket monitoring at the photo towers on Main Street, parking of bikes at the hill climb & short circuit, parking of bikes and handing out water at the drags and keeping an eye on the people in the Museum and Hall of Fame. 
In between shifts we walked all through the town and every day saw more and more wonderful custom bikes and of course some really weird ones. The noise level is really unbelievably loud as about 98% of the bikes at the rally are Harley Davidson’s with both male and female riders.  Some people even had their dogs riding with them! We spent one day sightseeing and enjoying the beautiful roads in the area.  We went through Rapid City, Keystone to Custer National Park and saw a big heard of bison and a few deer.  We rode the famous Pigtail hairpins and the Needles Highway to Mt Rushmore and looked at the Presidents. Then we headed off the see Crazy Horse, this was by far one of the most interesting sites we have seen as on completion it will be the world’s biggest sculpture.

These past few days have been an absolute blessing and we thank the Lord that we can be here at this time.

Epos gestuur 10 Augustus 2008 12.57am

Sturgis & The Black Hills