Another Dam Campout

Another Dam Campout for the history books! Brion told me that this was the 8th annual Big Sioux Riders Dam/Mother's Day Campout and the weather was dam near perfect. I took off from Sioux Falls around 10 am on Saturday morning with the sun shining for a change. I had no specific route planned, thinking that the Sioux City people would be finished with lunch by the time I got to the Dock Bar outside of Running Water, SD anyway. I rode down Frog Creek Road, then Bluff Road and ended up crossing the Missouri River in Yankton. From there I headed west where I saw a sign that said "Dam Road Closed", but I didn't want to go that dam way anyhow. I headed south and west and crossed the bridge over the river near Niobrara, NE. When I arrived at the Dock Bar there were about 20 bikes in the parking lot. I thought that this was going to be the biggest dam campout ever. Then I discovered that there was another group of bikers besides the group from Sioux City. I also found out that I had arrived only a few minutes after the rest of the group. Gary Pederson had ridden down from Chester to have lunch with the group. We had a nice lunch outdoors on the deck and then some of the people headed back home and others took off to collect pictures for a rally they are doing. Gary and I headed for Pickstown and when we got to Highway 46, Gary headed back home and I went off to find the campsite.
I arrived at the camping area thinking that Larry and Bill would have their tents already set up, but they were nowhere in sight. I found out that they had ridden thru Springfield to see the yacht under construction and were fortunate enough to get invited up to see the inside of it. They spent over an hour visiting with the builder.
Not knowing what sites Brion had picked out I set my chair up in the shade and proceeded to have a few beverages while I waited for the group to arrive. I went to the bathroom and when I came out there was Larry, not only drinking his beer, but also one of mine. Words were exchanged and I wrestled my beer out of his hand. By then the rest of the group arrived and we got our tents set up for the night.
We rode to Fort Randall Casino for supper that night, picked up more beverages afterwards and then sat around a nice campfire and told the
usual lies. Just after I had retired to my tent I heard the most awful noise, and then maybe ten seconds later a louder noise. I got out of the tent and the people who were still up had discovered that a tree had fallen over. Actually it was a third of a tree, one with three trunks. It looked like debris had collected in the crotch and with moisture the wood had rotted away, and there just wasn't enough material left to hold the tree up. Fortunately no one had set their tent up under that tree. The next morning Brion took some pictures of some bum who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Come morning Brion already had coffee made for us. We packed up and returned to the casino to have the breakfast buffet. I said my goodbyes and headed home from there. The wind was a pain in the butt all the way home, probably 30-40 mph out of the south. I rode east for a while and then north to get a break from the wind and then back east. I got home about 1 pm. All in all a dam good campout, and that's my dam story. Yosemite Sam signing out!!!

Submitted by “Yosemite Sam”, aka Dale Nordlie