#91 First Sturgis (September 2009)

Well, it looks like I’m going to finally have to go to Sturgis. After a lifetime of successfully avoiding the event, it looks like this time I have little choice but to go. I don’t want it to sound like I’m whining about it, I just have had no desire to join the throng of baggers that undoubtedly infest the town, or to endure the “titties and beer” crowd lecherously yelling at every female, hoping they will whip out some floppy mammaries for their drunken enjoyment.
Don’t get me wrong; I can appreciate naked ladies as well as the next guy. It just seems at these events the ones that get displayed the most, really ought to be hidden. But hey, I’ve never been, so maybe it’s different there… maybe.
But like other “Major” events I’ve been dragged to… umm… attended, the actual amount of fun that can be had is always determined by one’s choice of cohorts with whom to hang out. I know many people that will be there, so hopefully that will render the location irrelevant.
I will be there, ostensibly, to check out The Horse Chopper Show on Monday. Take some pics and get a feel for what goes on, hopefully to make the report in the next issue somewhat more coherent than in years past. Before, I would get a collection of photos and some information, but without first hand experience it was always a huge challenge to make sense of it. I’m not sure I ever was successful at that.
So hey, I’m going and I’m going to make the best of it. I’d love to take a couple of weeks and just cruise out there on the Shovel, ride around the badlands and all that happy horseshit, but as usual, I just don’t have the time. So I’m flying in Sunday and I’m flying out Wednesday, all the fun and games of non-direct flights. But it’s work so I can’t bitch. I have the greatest damn job in the world and if I must go and hang out with some buddies for a couple of days instead of slogging away in the office, then so be it!
By the time you read this, it will be all over… in fact summer will just about be over. It’ll be time to start working on Hammer again to establish a ‘southern command’ so we can get the hell out of this frozen wasteland for a few months. By the time you read this, the DVD of The Long Road will likely be sitting in your disk players and you’ll be kicking yourself for missing it. We’re working on the 2010 calendars now, so hopefully we’ll have the dates for next year’s Smoke Out XI and Long Road 2 soon. I can see who wants to be in the 2010 Amateur Chop off... and Pro Chop Off for that matter, and we’ll start the whole process all over. Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait! Sturgis pic by Dawn Rosa Cole