Sturgis Rally Week

I have been writing a christmas program, so the first thing that came to mind for this title was "No room at the inn." This week in the Rapid City, Sturgis area there is no room at any of the inns. The motorcycle rally is the first week of August, but this is the second week you say. It's weird, it's like trying to calculate when Easter is going to be. You eventually just give up and look on the calendar. I guess the rally is the first week of August, but it has to start on the first Sat. This year Aug. 1 was on Sun. so it had to start on Aug. 7. Summertime is always crowded no matter where you live, especially if you live in a popular tourist area. We have Mt. Rushmore here, so tourism is big business here. To put it in perspective for you, Sturgis has about 6000 people, Rapid City is about 1/2 hour away, and it has about 80,000 people. The Rapid City Metro Area including Sturgis, towns in the Black Hills, and Ellsworth Air Force Base, has about 125,000 people.
I remember twenty years ago at the 50th anniversary of the rally, everyone here was surprised that 100,000 people were predicted to be here. This year I heard half a million people are predicted. A couple of days after that I heard 800,000 people. I don't see very much of it. I drive to work, drive home, go get the kids, and go home. Monday I suggested we drive around and check license plates to see how far people have come on their motorcycles. Brent, my 12 year old said he had already seen enough. They had seen probably 5000 motorcycles on Sunday. I had accused him of exaggerating but then he said they went with their mom through the state park where there is a large buffalo herd, and I figured that was probably pretty accurate.
As you can imagine, the hospital is fully staffed this week, especially since South Dakota doesn't have a helmet law. I never really thought about the retail stores. The cashier I had at Wal-Mart Saturday said he was working every day this week too. It can be frustrating, if you forget and don't allow yourself enough time to get to where you're going, but it can be fun watching the sights. So if you've never experienced the Sturgis Rally, or Daytona Bike Week, you need to check it out at least once.