As usual, First Reader and I spent a week in South Dakota during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The ride up and back always seems a little surreal.

When I ride, I wear earplugs (yes, I can hear enough with them) and a helmet with Bluetooth communication so FR and I can chat. When the wind noise isn’t so bad that it drowns out all other sounds, that is. We avoid the interstate and all the zoom-zoom traffic because of the speeds involved. When a semi rig passes by, the turbulence can be downright dangerous. Instead, we prefer to travel via US Highways. And, lucky us, a series of US and state highways take us to our destination south of Rapid City.

This year, we thought we would wait a day or two before heading north to the Black Hills. Last year as we were riding home, I was almost run off the road by someone running a ‘toy hauler’ in our direction. He played road games with us for miles before we pulled over and let him menace someone else. Leave me out of your sick fantasies, please.

We left on Tuesday morning, with Best Riding Buddy following in the tow vehicle. The ride up was less eventful than usual. This time, we didn’t have to dodge as many campers and trailers as we do when traveling on the weekend. We had the highway to ourselves, more or less. We arrived at our cabin before dark and got the bikes unloaded just in time for a severe storm warning. Our temporary neighbors told us the park instructed everyone to put their bikes under a nearby cabana. We got the bikes in just as it started raining.

The weather this year was cooler and wetter than usual, so we didn’t get in as much riding as we liked. Mornings were mild and sunny, but clouds built up by mid-afternoon and thunderstorms rolled in. We watched the weather all week because of the monsoonal pattern. Most days, we were back at the cabin well before dark. It rained most of the day Sunday, and a hailstorm rolled through in the afternoon. Best Riding Buddy left that morning, so she missed all the fun. Good thing I parked under as much tree shelter as I could find. First Reader wasn’t so lucky and needs to replace the cover on her seat.

Because of the unsettled weather and a front forecast to come in the day we needed to leave, First Reader and I left a day early. We split the ride home into two days, stopping in a small town at the halfway point. Not expecting the motels to be mostly full on a Tuesday in a tiny town in Wyoming, there we were, ready to stop. Luckily, we scored one of the few rooms left at the Best Western—it had enough room for six people (the manager charged us for a single room, whew).

We made it within 120 miles of home when my bike began overheating. After we determined the bike was dripping coolant, we added water to the coolant overflow and kept going—slower than before. What should have taken only an hour and a half turned into three. First Reader went for the car. I took my bike straight to the dealer who worked on it last year. The prognosis: a radiator leak. I’ll let you know how that goes. (Spoiler alert: $$$)

And so ends the saga of our annual trip to the motorcycle capital of the Western United States.