We’ve been running our butts off the last couple of days. On Tuesday, we rode to Sturgis to get the missing vest patches. I only needed a couple of the “I Rode Mine” year patches, but First Reader needed a lot more than I did. We headed back to Black Hills Harley-Davidson when we were done shopping and had the Patch World vendor sew them all on. An arm and a leg later, my vest looks like this:

First Reader’s vest looks like this:

Today, we planned to ride Spearfish Canyon, but by the time we got to the beginning of the canyon, we were ready for a rest. I’m not sure everyone got a whole night’s rest last night. Instead, we diverted to Deadwood, where First Reader and Best Riding Buddy gambled while I people-watched.

Barring bad weather, we will probably head back to Spearfish Canyon tomorrow and ride there. When we’re here, we do a lot of riding. By the time we arrive home on Sunday, we’ll have put another thousand miles on the bikes. We will all have the raccoon look from the sun and the wind. At the end of the journey, we’ll be exhausted and ready to park our Iron Ponies for a few days. We wouldn’t have it any other way.