One month ago today, Tuesday, August 3rd, was suppose to be a great day for me to get out and ride all over the Black Hills the week before the Rally. What started out as a nice day and breakfast at the Silverado, turned out to be an all-day, shit-storm. A storm that went from bad to worse, and never really seemed to stop - It was pretty wicked. Even after the storm had passed and left piles of hail and ice all over Deadwood, we still had to wait it out for the roads to clear. We didn't leave Deadwood until late afternoon. This storm dropped hail, some almost the size of golf balls, for a good 45 minutes and then some. Winds came through at 60 mph, which made you think this was gonna blow right through and clear up quickly. Nope. This thing stuck around and had me running down the sidewalk to save my bike(dumb idea), only to get completely drenched. So, I spent a good hour or so stripped down to my underwear in Casino bathrooms drying all of my shit out under electric dryers. After the roads had sort of cleared up, we headed back to Sturgis, getting soaked once more - just for the hell of it.
What started out as a sprinkle
Turned into hail, wind, and rain
Which, after all was said and done, made people... shovel
And turned, what was a trickling little creek, into a raging stream
Piled up in the gutters
And buried the grass
Merry Christmas
This is why parking your bike under something, setting a tent up on higher ground, or staking your tent down a little more can go a long ways when you're in the hills - or anywhere for that matter.
I've had a rain fly completely dissappear from the wind, seen bikes and tents get swept away by rain/mud, and plenty of tents go tumbling through a campground because they weren't staked down well.
Hell, last year a guy sleeping got knocked unconscious from hail ripping through his tent - storms in the Black Hills tear shit up.
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