That was the headline in the Sunday edition of the Rapid City Journal.  I have already heard of 5 deaths since we have arrived but none will be in the “official” count because the rally hasn’t “officially” started. 

This information is sad but doesn’t surprise me. There are hundreds of thousands of bikers at the rally every year, some are even drinking alcohol.

We checked the first thing off our list yesterday and went into downtown Sturgis. We wanted to see the parade of motorcycles and watch some of the people. If you are a people watcher, like I am, this is the perfect place.  We are lucky that we have family that has lived in this area for years. They took us through the back roads and we avoided most of the traffic going into the rally. We arrived and parked at the Catholic Church parking lot. They make a lot of money parking cars and motorcycles for the week.  We walked just 2 short blocks and arrived at our destination…Main Street in Sturgis.  We saw more exposed skin then I care to think about. I guess the cool thing to do is to go shirtless but paint flowers all over your upper torso.  OK, some women can get away with it but most of the ones I saw shouldn’t have been exposing anything!

Walking down Main Street of Sturgis was loud and interesting.  Bike after bike paraded down the street and there were 4 rows of motorcycles parked on the street. I can’t even begin to imagine how many bikes were parked in the 2 block area we walked. Again, the rally hasn’t officially started.

This is not the place to learn how to ride a motorcycle and this is not the place for someone who doesn’t pay attention to the road. As a motorist you have to be on high alert because those little buggers sneak up on you without any warning.

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