Our trip was timed oddly. With gasoline at an all-time high, driving a 8 mpg guzzler across the country was costly. Also, due to the Sturgis, SD motorcycle rally, nearly every hotel on I-90 was full. We got a lot of good scenery, though, like this brute:
I began to ponder the state of the motorcycle in America. Clearly, it has lost its outlaw status. It seemed that most of the riders to Sturgis that I saw were middle-aged men or couples wanting to play at living outside the rules. How things have changed. There was a time when motorcycle riders would have been overcharged at motels in an attempt to keep them out, to keep their kind of trouble away. Wherever we stopped, though, we saw signs for "Motorcylists Welcome!" and "Free Motorcycle Wash." How pathetic. Once a bastion of the anti-establishment, the venom has been turned to honey for the gears of capitalism. Now the high prices are just meant to profit off another mainstream group--could have been an insurance claims adjuster convention come to town instead of the outlaws of old. To me, it seems just another sign of the mass standardization of the U.S.
Oh, yeah, I noticed right away that Americans are fat. Really. Even high school kids are bigger than when I grew up. Blame the Happy Meal.
Montana is aptly named "Big Sky Country" as evidenced by F.'s photo:
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