Show Journal 1999-08-08
Day 2 – We woke up and discovered today’s show was an early one (2:00) and we would probably be late. Also we discovered that Pierre is in another time zone which would make us even later. Needless to say we had the van floored all the way into Wyoming. I took a nap and when I woke up we were stalled on the road in the middle of Wyoming. Jim tried to diagnose the problem but it was all in vain. We tried the cell phone, but it doesn’t get real far in the middle of Wyoming. After about 30 minutes, the engine cooled off and somehow we were able to start it again and drive about another hour … until it died again. We did the “drive until it dies, stop, let it cool and start going again” routine all the way into South Dakota where we were actually pulled over by the police. We were issued a warning for having an object dangling from the rear view mirror. Yes, I’m dead serious about that. I think they just wanted to scope out the van because of the crowds heading into Sturgis. Speaking of which, Sturgis is nuts. We got off at the exit there to get gas and it was amazing. Bikes of every shape and color. Something like 300,000 people show up during the week. It was really cool to see. Anyway, we continued limping along in the broken van (driving, waiting, driving) all the way past Wall Drug (where we stopped to get stickers). By now we were 2 hours late with an hour to go, and driving through the middle of the Badlands. Then it happened, the van gave out for good. It was late afternoon by now, the show was long over, we were 40 miles from a town, and it was almost 104 degrees. Luckily we were about a mile from a gas station. No town, no hotel at the exit, just one gas station. The gas station was inhabited by about 100 bikers (remember it’s Sturgis week) but we risked death and called Dave’s motor club for a tow. We headed back to the crippled van and waited for about an hour. Somewhere during that time Dave decided that he wanted to name a song “Kenny Rodgers Roasters, God I Love that Shit.” Eventually the truck showed and we got towed to Philip, SD. Philip was the home of the nearest Ford Dealer and we were forced to stay in some crappy hotel that cost us 55 dollars. We ordered a pizza and I swear it came from a freezer and was stuck in a delivery box. The tour is looking very bleak at this point.
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