[URL="https://www.yahoo.com/autos/s/over-million-bikers-descended-sleepy-south-dakota-town-192835623.html"]No Lie.
We drove this afternoon
and met every one of them.[/URL]
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On the average each of them leaves $600 in four counties.
Do that math.
It's time for us to up our game and build something bigger.
Running 24 occupancy for three months is barely
putting us in the six figure range. We're starving.
Just 22 days and we're closing this mess up and heading to....
....Where there's a beautiful sunset burning up the atmosphere...
to give you a relative perspective of what a crowd of 1,000,000 is...
That's 150,000 more than live in this state... and all of them are concentrated in four counties, but mostly in Pennington (where I'm at) and Mead. When they start leaving this afternoon it will a constant roar of Harleys from about noon until after dark here at the house, 1/3 of a mile from Interstate 90.
It's 5:40 am and quiet here.... In a couple of hours they'll all be on the roads converging back in Sturgis.
Here's a video that filmed yesterday from a drone flying over "downtown" Sturgis (normal population 6,690) Looking at the shadows on the sidewalks I'd say it was shot about 11 am... The cycles there then are mostly people who stayed in Sturgis - maybe 10% of the million. By 6 in the evening it's always an eight to twelve mile traffic jam of mostly Harleys in all directions around and through Sturgis until 3 - 4 in the morning.
51 seconds.
Here's the "normal"populations on the 4 counties it effects the most. Mead (Sturgis) 26000 Lawrence (Spearfish) 24000 (over 8,000 of that is students at Black Hills State U -who aren't there right now) Butte (Deadwood) 10,000 Pennington (Rapid City) 109,000
Total 169000 "population" here except from June 1st to Labor Day. Even in slow weeks during the summer, crowds coming to Sturgis, Deadwood, Black Hills & Rushmore each week more than triple the number of people who live here.
And NO ONE around here ever complains about it because they know what $600,000,000 -- JUST FROM THIS PAST WEEK ALONE. means around here. UNreal.
LJay Wrote:Good grief!
Where do they all eat and then how does the plumbing handle the result?
Everyone pitches in to help and the bikers are not afraid the throw money to anyone who does. We have a new truck stop near the Interstate here. I went there Friday to "bribe" the cashiers to show bikers how to get to our place if they needed to eat, shower or whatever. There had to be forty of them on the lot and in the store then. On the counter they had a tip jar with a note on it about helping them keep their restrooms clean... The damned jar was loaded up! hahahaha! We fed around 70 extra plus the 24 who boarded with us Thursday - 100 Extra Friday and Sunday and 40 plus most of our guests for lunch today. We don't charge, but sit out a big tip jar for all that... (and all meals and the bar too for regular guests.) Just Friday with them paying for showers we took in $555 dollars... not a single one dollar bill in the tip jar. Hahahahaha! We were hauling truck loads of towels to and from the laundromat from 7 am to 7pm. If they need clothes washed we set em up with bathrobes beer and munchies while Ray's little brother worked his ass off downstairs at the washer & dryer... and getting tipped for it. Guests in the bunkhouse we built last years with 8 beds and 6 bathrooms PLUS Ray's apartment's bathroom plus the three in the house, we had them going. This year over half the guests this past week stuck around here and pitched in to help a bit. We made sure they knew how much we appreciated it.
I'm guessing that at least 80% of them come with tents or bedrolls and use the portable toilets people set up in cow fields and rent spaces to them. Trash trucks run out in the camp sites at night when most bikers are out partying. Some of the landowners even have small stores in trailers they haul to the fields. Doctors and nurses come from all over the US to help out at the hopsitals. Extra Medivac units come in. Cops from as far as California and Florida come to help. If you ever want to see 50,000 nekkid people skinny dipping and screwing along a highway... come up here and ask for directions to Highway 385 from Rapid City through the hills. And DON'T YOU DARE EVEN SLOW DOWN TO TAKE PICTURES!!!!!! If the bikers or the cops see ya doing that they'll light you up!
Chase Wrote:I'd prefer those bikers to the marauding leaf peepers that will descend upon my town this fall.
Yeah, I can understand that. I can't see "leaf peepers" dropping $600,000,000 in a week.
On a much grander scale it reminds me of the time when my little town in Indiana got snowed in while there was a basketball tourney in the gym. There are no hotels or such within miles. No problem. The town went to work and people were put up everywhere from spare rooms to couches to church basements. Just one more example of Midwesterners doing what needs to be done. At least you knew what was coming.
Over one million people.
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