Sturgis Bike Week

We finally reached South Dakota - and the Sturgis Bike Rally. This rally is bigger than Bike Week in Daytona Beach--about 500,000 Harley riders in a tiny South Dakota town. The roads were jammed with bikers-an amazing number of them women. The percentage of women riding huge bikes has risen dramatically in the last few years.

We took the "Wildlife Loop" through the Black Hills on Monday (along with 1000's of bikers). We counted 1 buffalo, a zillion prairie dogs and two miniature dobermans (OK- they were just being walked by their owner- but after an hour of driving, we were going to count anything on all 4's). We saw tons of "buffalo chips" on the road and John was beginning to think that the park workers drove around and dropped it on the road so that people would think that there were herd of buffalos around.

We had lunch in Custer, SD at a local restaurant- known for their rhubarb pie. We waddled out of that lunch back to the car and took the Needles Highway back to the campground.

For the next few days, we spent time in the town of Sturgis along with all of our new biker friends. We spent one day at Thunder Road, just outside of town. It was the home of the super-custom bikes and they were quite a site. On Wednesday, we headed into town early in the morning. We stopped by Orange County Choppers and caught a glimpse of Paul Sr. The line waiting for autographs was already forming an hour before their scheduled appearance. In town, we grabbed breakfast at the Road Kill Café and wandered the streets checking out the vendors.

On Thursday, we stopped at the Broken Spoke Saloon and saw the Biker Build Off Bikes. We followed that with a visit to the Full Throttle Saloon. The Full Throttle was a bit like the raunchy bars outside Daytona….waitresses in lingerie, burn-out pits, and the Wall of Death.

Middle of Nowhere, Idaho

In the middle of friggin' nowhere! John had us following the Oregon/Mormon Trail across Idaho and Wyoming. Last night we stayed outside of a little Idaho town called Soda Springs. We had to drive down a long farm, gravel road to get to this "RV Park/Golf Course". We were the only RV there- and there was absolutely nothing around us but farm fields with mountains in the background. I had visions of strange men driven crazy by the miles of nothing - turning into serial killers and attacking us in the middle of the night. John even had the mace by the bed! This is, after all, the home of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.

Well, we made it through the night... We went to bed with temperatures of 100 degrees --so we naturally left all our windows open and the fan running. We got up to temperatures of 50 degrees! It was freezing. John tried to convince me that it was a good way to imagine what the pioneers crossing the country must have faced. Except, of course, that we just turned on the heat and were toasty in just minutes.

Following the Mormon Trail

It took two long days of driving---we’d averaged about 6 hours every day for the past two days- and we had one more day left to get to some kind of civilization (if you can call 500,000 bikers "civilization). On the road from Idaho through Wyoming, we tracked the Mormon Trail. We stopped at the site of the Martin Handcart Company and the LDS Visitor Center. Given the direct history of John’s Spencer relatives in the debaucle, it was particularly interesting to take the tour of the visitors center and hear the story of the handcart companies. And, it did help to break up a long day of driving. When we finally pulled into our campground, we were still in the middle of nowhere Wyoming.

Sunny in Seattle

After Portland, we couldn’t imagine finding yet another city in the Pacific NW that we loved. But, Seattle, was the Boston of the NW. The city itself was beautiful and the weather was spectacular- warm, but not too hot, clear and sunny. We did talk with the locals who assured us that winter weather was nothing short of awful- drizzly, cloudy days.

We took a City Tour that picked us up directly from the campground and we had a great tour of the city. The guide was a Jim Belushi wanna-be and really brought the city to life. We got to see all the highlights of the city- Pike Place Market, Pioneer Square, the Space Needle, the Queen Anne District, the Freemont District (and the famous Freemont under the bridge Troll). We also stopped at the Hiram M Chittenden Locks and saw another fish ladder.
After getting the city overview, we spent the next few days going back to visit the city- spending time in Pikes Place Market (John had a few beers and chatted with the locals while I bought fresh produce), the International District (where we found the most wonderful Korean food court restaurant), seeing The Eruption of St Helens at the Omnidome and having a spectacular fish lunch at the Chinook Restaurant near the Fisherman’s Terminal. We had heard that the best place to buy fresh salmon was under bridge heading south from the city. A local Indian (they have salmon fishing rights) supposedly catches them daily and sells them from the back of his trunk. We tried several times, but never caught the Chief.
As home of Boeing, we had to visit the Boeing factory and take the tour. What an eye-opener. Our premier aircraft manufacturer had a largest factory building in the world- and only one 747 being built. The Europeans have taken the lead in large scale aircraft manufacturing with the AirBus. We spent another day at the Museum of Flight- with over 50 historic aircraft on display. Retired Boeing employees give 1 or 2 hour tours of the museum.

SFO

We arrived on Sunday. We were camped at an RV park (parking lot is more like it) in the city- at Candlestick Park, San Francisco's football stadium. The location of this place was great- literally a few miles from the heart of the city. But, they've taken a huge parking lot and added yellow lines and hookups- and we were right on top of each other. The space between sites was so close that our slide-outs almost touched. And, it's the most expensive park we've ever stayed at-- $52/night!! Oh well, as they say, you pay for location.....

We called Bob and Camille to get together for dinner. They came over to meet us and we started our exploration of the “underbelly” of SFO. Bob’s favorite places probably wouldn’t be found in Fodor’s or Frommer’s guide books, but it was fascinating!
On Sunday, we headed over the bridge to Oakland and got a chance to meet Bruiser and see Bob and Camille’s new house. It was in a charming area, mostly black, but the housing stock was adorable and ripe for gentrification. We got the full city tour of Oakland, had lunch at The Lighthouse Restaurant, drinks at Jack London Square. The little bar, called Heinhold’s First and Last Chance Saloon was supposedly a favorite haunt of London’s. The building had survived earthquakes and the floor is decidedly slanted. Next to the bar is a replica of Jack London’s Yukon cabin (allegedly built from the timbers of a cabin London lived in during the Yukon gold rush).

On Monday, we headed over the hills to Rich and Lani’s house in Half Moon Bay. It is a truly lovely house with spectacular views of the ocean from nearly every window. They were in the final throws of selling the house. We had salmon that they had caught deep sea fishing on Sunday. We finished off a bottle of Grand Marinier – and had an interesting ride back home.

We had a “father’s lunch” on Wednesday with Bob’s boss. Jeff, and one of his co-workers and his father. We ate at the “Hard Knocks Café”—one of Bob’s favorite haunts- a soul food restaurant run by a Vietnamese guy and his girlfriend. The food was first rate and in huge portions- oxtails, catfish, collard greens, cornbread, red beans and rice. We liked it so much that we dragged Rich and Lani there for dinner (where we had a great dinner and interesting conversation with a local bus driver). After our “father’s lunch”, we drove down to the marina to see Jeff’s boat then met Camille for drinks at “The Ramp”.
On Bob’s recommendation, we grabbed lunch on Wednesday at one of the many tacquerias in SFO-- a truck converted into a meals on wheels and they were everywhere-- tacos were $1.00 apiece and if you buy 5, you get a free drink (soda). So far it was the only bargain we found in the city.

Not wanting to miss seeing a Mormon Visitor’s Center, we headed to Oakland on Thursday afternoon and visited the Temple complex. We got a private showing of one of the LDS movies. We headed over Bob and Camille’s after the movie and had lunch at a local Mexican place- chile rellenos and beer.

On our last full day in SFO, the four of us went to see Fahrenheit 9/11. It was a very moving documentary and hit Camille particularly hard since her brother is serving in Iraq. Dinner was at another local institution, The Clam House.

Salt Lake City Wanderings

Salt Lake City was an absolutely beautiful city--lots of lovely neighborhoods with older houses and tons of charm. AND- there is no traffic and no crime. It was a bit like back to the 50's - where all the women are well dressed, the children are well mannered, the men wear white shirts and ties and no one locks their doors. The Church, however, does control EVERYTHING. You can't order a drink without ordering food in downtown restaurants - and you can't have two drinks sitting in front of you at one time. The women are gorgeous and many have incredibly large breasts (either natural or man-made). The city has one of the highest rates of breast implants in the country. They have something called an "endowment" ceremony in the temple. John said that "First they go to the temple to get endowed- then they go to the clinic for their other "endowment"".

More strange SLC stories-- the houses are all HUGE. We got a chance to visit with Sean and Elle. They moved to SLC 4 years ago- and we went over to their house for dinner. The two of them (and their two dogs) have an 8 bedroom house with multiple living rooms, a huge kitchen, 2 offices, a three car garage and a huge yard. Now, they didn't buy it because they needed the space- but felt that they had to buy a house that size for resale purposes- 8 bedrooms are a minimum requirement for resale. These LARGE Mormon families..... Most of the women don't work. And, evidently they are the largest users of Prozac in the nation. With tons of children and a ban on caffeine- you have to do something. I'm not sure what the women do- but there are craft stores everywhere (I guess cross stitch and scrapbooking is one way to stay busy...and they can find new projects for the Monday evening "Family Night"- where the family gets together for scripture reading, craft making and family bonding)

Every year the Church holds "the Conference" where the President (who is also a Prophet, Seer and Revelator) comes out with his "revelations" for the year. Last year, he came out with the "befriend a Gentile" commandment (The term "Gentiles" covers everyone who is not Mormon--including Jews!) So, Sean and Elle are invited everywhere -- breakfasts, ball games, dinner parties. Personally, we think it's all part of a huge campaign to win over converts by letting them see what a wonderful lifestyle the Mormons have.

We were able to track down some of John's distant cousins on his mothers’ side. We found a web site for the Spencer family and used Yahoo to track down the "Spencer Family Organization" president. He was happy to hear from us and invited us to a 4th of July "Ward Breakfast" (Wards are like our churches- but they are all assigned geographically. You have no choice of what ward you belong to- it's all based on your address. And, they don't have clergy per se....the head of the Ward is a Bishop who is just a regular guy who receives the "Call"- no special training and no pay!). Well, it turned out that John's cousin, Mel, was Bishop of the Ward. So, we headed over to the breakfast. It was a bit like a Branson show- a little bit of religion, a little bit of patriotism and alot of family values. Mel, Joan and his family were really quite charming and they invited us back to their house and shared their knowledge about John's family. They then turned us over to the creator of the web site- another cousin, Ed . Ed and his wife, Cindy, invited us over to their house and we got more info and photos of John's great-great and great grandfather.

We spend most of our SLC time doing family research- visiting libraries (the Mormons have the largest genealogical library. We spent days in the LDS Family History Center, the Utah State Historical Society, the Utah State Archives and the LDS Church Archives. From the information we collected, we were also able to find a number of the Spencer houses and the gravesites of most of the Spencer clan. The cemeteries were strange. With multiple wives, you definitely got a sense of who was “top dog” among the wives based on their proximity to their man.
The Mormons provided us with days of entertainment and our visit was topped off by a visit from Brenda and John and their grandson, Dylan. They stopped in SLC on their way to visit their son in Idaho. So, we've had two busy days showing them the sites of SLC (our 2nd temple tour). They'd never had Indian food so we took them to "Taj India" for lunch. It met with mixed results. Evidently this place caters to a true Indian clientele- so the food was quite spicy for American tastes (perfect for us, but even John had a few beads of sweat and a nice pink glow to his cheeks while eating). I don't think that they'll be searching for their next Indian experience anytime soon. On their last night, we let them do the cooking and had steak, baked potato and smothered onions and drank wine into the evening.

The Mormon Miracle Pageant

Back on the road- we left Colorado and stopped in a tiny town called Manti, Utah. It's the home of the annual "Mormon Miracle Pageant" ...and we do love these strange Mormon pageants. With a cast of 500, it was held at 9:30 pm for 2 hours--and filled with Mormon families (they love their children- it seems that most of the couples have at least 4 children...) Since all the Mormons for miles around attend the pageant, we got a spot in the local campground- in the fields. The poor Essex was parked in mud with it’s wheels jacked up to make the coach level. We looked a sight- a 45’ motorhome in the middle of a field of tents and campers.

We had a bit of time to explore the area—lots of tiny Mormon towns with wide streets and nothing to do! Rain was threatening for the pageant, but managed to hold off for the entire performance.